A Supernova That Shouldn't Exist
Mark Thompson
When stars at least thirty times the mass of our Sun reach the end of their lives, astronomers had assumed they simply winked out, collapsing silently into black holes under the force of gravity from which not even light can escape. No bright supernova explosion, no spectacular death throes, just a quiet gravitational implosion.
Except that's not what happened with SN 2022esa.
A team of researchers at Kyoto University observed this peculiar supernova and discovered that the massive star...