Despite the massive number of stars in the sky, spotting one in the throes of a supernova is still an incredibly rare event. Now, astronomers have captured a red supergiant before, during and after a ...

A distant stellar explosion has offered astronomers a rare natural experiment, one that turns gravity into a powerful optical ...

When very large stars run out of fuel and reach the end of their lives, they can explode in massive, dramatic events called supernovas. These explosions throw off enormous amounts of light and energy, ...

Astronomers have imaged in real-time the dramatic end to a red supergiant’s life, watching the massive star’s rapid self-destruction and final death throes before it collapsed into a Type II supernova ...

The telescope observed a supernova that exploded when the universe was only 730 million years old, along with its faint host ...

It’s incredibly rare for scientists to observe a supernova, but to observe one before, during, and after the explosion had never been done — until now, a new study says. According to a report by Space ...

Radioactive decay is a powerful tool. The predictable decay of radioactive isotopes can be used for far more than just dating old rocks. Scientists have used radioactive isotopes to determine the age ...

Mysterious stars that incite their stellar companions to explode in spectacular supernovas have just been revealed — these culprits can be bloated red giants, researchers say. Supernovas are exploding ...

A supernova is what happens to a massive star at the end of its life. Such cataclysmic explosions are known to send shock waves of compressed gas clouds far into the cosmos that eventually birth new ...