Boom! Distant star explosion is brightest ever seen
And it may be an odd type of supernova that has yet to be confirmed observationally.

An artist’s illustration of a brilliant supernova, the explosive death of a star. (Image: © Aaron Geller (Northwestern University)) 

This supernova is one for the record books. A mammoth star explosion known as SN2016aps, which occurred in a galaxy about 3.6 billion light-years from Earth, is the brightest supernova ever seen, a new study reports.

“We can measure supernovae using two scales: the total energy of the explosion, and the amount of that energy that is emitted as observable light, or radiation,” study lead author Matt Nicholl, a lecturer in the School of Physics and Astronomy and the Institute of Gravitational Wave Astronomy at the University of Birmingham in England, said in a statement.

“In a typical supernova, the radiation is less than 1% of the total energy,” Nicholl added. “But in SN2016aps, we found the radiation was five times the explosion energy of a normal-sized supernova. This is the most light we have ever seen emitted by a supernova.”

See full article on Space.com