Supernovas

Small black holes were nowhere to be found, leading astronomers to wonder if they didn’t exist at all. Now a series of findings, including a “unicorn” black hole, has raised hopes of solving the decade-long mystery.

Three-dimensional supernova simulations have solved the mystery of why they explode at all.

A recent neutron star merger has defied astronomers’ expectations, leading them to question longstanding ideas about neutron stars and the supernovas that create them. “We have to go back to the drawing board.”

A study challenged the evidence for the mysterious antigravitational force known as dark energy. Then cosmologists shot back.

How do magnetars get so magnetic? A study of stellar explosions shows that the long-accepted theory might be wrong.

A giant star’s death throes may offer the first evidence of a pair-instability supernova, and a glimpse of the first stars in the universe.

Subatomic particles called muons are thought to have streamed through the atmosphere and irradiated megafauna like the monster shark megalodon.

A roundup of some of the most important discoveries gleaned so far from the Gaia space observatory’s new map of the galaxy.

Astronomers are mystified by a strange star explosion in a distant galaxy that might be a relic from an earlier cosmological era.