Supernovas, the catastrophic explosions that follow the collapse of a star, are essential to our understanding of the cosmos. They serve as the yardstick we use to measure vast distances across space.

The supernova was the death of a red supergiant star 500 times larger than the sun, in a galaxy just 22 million light-years away. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate ...

In a series of observations that read like science fiction, astronomers now suspect they have watched a star quite literally pull itself apart. Instead of a neat, textbook explosion, the dying object ...

It's the last clearly observed supernova in the Milky Way, Gassel said.