Astronomers find most powerful supernova

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Left: Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) image of the field where supernova 2005ap was found showing four nearby galaxies (A B C and D) in December 2004. Right: Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) image of the same field about two months later showing supernov ...
Left: Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) image of the field where supernova 2005ap was found, showing four nearby galaxies (A, B, C and D) in December 2004. Right: Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) image of the same field about two months later, showing supernova 2005ap. The supernova's host galaxy is too distant to appear in either image. Photo: SDSS, R. Quimby/McDonald Observatory/The University of Texas at Austin

Astronomer Robert Quimby has again found the most luminous supernova. Quimby discovered the current record holder, supernova 2006gy, last year as part of his Texas Supernova Search project. Now he has announced that a supernova he has discovered earlier in the project is actually twice as luminous. Using follow-up studies to pinpoint its distance, supernova 2005ap peaked at more than 100 billion times the brightness of the Sun.


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