Nearby supernova discovered, among the brightest ever in X-rays The discovery of one of the nearest supernovas to Earth to occur in the last 25 years will be revealed in a paper to be published in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal. The object -- an exploding star that briefly shined brighter than billions of stars combined -- has now been positively identified as a supernova more than a decade after it first occurred and has been named SN 1996cr.
Powerful nearby supernova caught by web of telescopes Over a decade after it exploded, one of the nearest supernovae in the last 25 years has been identified. This result was made possible by combining data from the vast online archives from many of the worlds premier telescopes. The spacewalk by one of the astronauts is expected to take place either on Friday or Saturday. The supernova, called SN 1996cr, was first singled out in 2001 by Franz Bauer. Bauer noticed a bright, variable source in the Circinus spiral galaxy, using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. Although the source displayed some exceptional properties Bauer and his Penn State colleagues could not identify its nature confidently at the time.