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Astronomers have witnessed a cosmic explosion about 200 times more powerful than a typical supernova--an event that already ranks among the mightiest outbursts in the universe--and more than twice as luminous as the previous record-holding supernova. At its peak intensity, the explosion, called ASASSN-15lh, shone with 570 billion times the luminosity of the sun--a luminosity level approximately 20 times the entire output of the 100 billion stars comprising our Milky Way galaxy.
The record-breaking blast is believed to be an example of a "superluminous supernova," a recently discovered and very rare variety of explosion unleashed by certain stars when they die. Shown here is an artist's impression of the record-breaking, powerful, superluminous supernova as it would appear from an exoplanet located about 10,000 light-years away in the host galaxy of the supernova.Image credit: Jin Ma, Beijing Planetarium
