Universe's Biggest Supernova Detected, So Bright That Astronomers Spotted It From 4.6 Billion Light-Years Away!

Astronomers have recently observed the biggest supernova ever recorded. It emitted twice the light of the next biggest star explosion.

The detonation was first spotted on the 22^nd of February, 2016. In the next two years, Matt Nicholl, a University of Birmingham’s astronomer, led a team to analyze the fallout of the supernova until the light faded to a small amount of the peak brightness.

Nicholl said that the earliest data suggests that the explosion was far brighter than the galaxy in which the star exploded so the event immediately sparked interest among astronomers.

This detonation is classed into the superluminous supernovae category, which experts have only observed twice before. These events are thought to be the death of gargantuan stars with masses 40 times bigger than that of the Sun. There are also regular supernovae of stars a quarter of that mass.

Nicholl and his team revealed that the supernova originated in a galaxy around 4.6 billion light-years from our planet. Even with that immense distance, the extreme brightness of the explosion is enough to excite astronomers.

They also shared that the dead star that exploded into this event might be up to 100 times bigger than the Sun.

Astronomers projected that the dead star might shed a large shell of gas before it exploded. When the supernova happened, the blast torched the gas and emitted a huge amount of light.

Scientists think that these huge stars are more common in the early universe, a mysterious stage in our universe history. Experts hope that this largest-ever supernova may shed some light on it.

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