A supernova is the catastrophic explosion of a star, and thermonuclear supernovae, in particular, refer to the complete destruction of a white dwarf star, leaving nothing behind.
So when a team of astronomers looked at the site of the strange thermonuclear supernova (SN 2012Z) using the Hubble Space Telescope, they were shocked to discover that the star survived the explosion. And it wasn’t just about surviving; The star was even brighter after the supernova than it was before.
Curtis McCauley, lead author on the recent study, published the findings and presented them at the 240th meeting of the American Astronomical Society. The tantalizing results provide new information about the origins of some of the most common, and mysterious, explosions in the universe.
These thermonuclear supernovae, also called Type Ia supernovae, are some of the most important tools in astronomers’ toolkits for measuring cosmic distances. Beginning in 1998, observations of these explosions revealed that the universe was expanding at an ever-accelerating rate. It is believed that this is due to dark energy, the discovery of which won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2011.