NASA has always thrived on rare glimpses into the violent life cycles of stars. For more than a century, telescopes have tracked novas, supernovas, and other cosmic flashes, each one adding to humanity’s understanding of how the universe evolves. Yet most of these events are either too distant, too fast, or too obscured for scientists to observe them in real time due to the distance light has to travel. The chance to catch a star in its final act—before, during, and after it tears itself apart—is almost unheard of.
NASA never experienced something like this before: It’s massive
That’s one of the reasons NASA has been on edge. The last time this particular type of stellar death was documented dates back to 1930, leaving decades of unanswered questions in its wake. Technology has advanced dramatically since then, but without fresh data, models of how these explosions unfold remained incomplete. To witness such a phenomenon is a rare opportunity to rewrite the science textbooks.
And this time, the timing couldn’t have been better. Hours before the blast, the star had already started sending signals, dimming and flickering in ways that drew attention. Instruments on Earth and in orbit were trained on the system when it reached its breaking point, giving researchers something they’ve long dreamed of: a front-row seat to one of the universe’s most powerful explosions.
It signaled Earth before it happened: NASA got ready in advance
Supernovae are already some of the most powerful explosions in the universe. But in July 2023, astronomers spotted one that didn’t fit the usual script. The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), a sky survey that tracks sudden flashes of light, picked up signals about 730 million light-years away that looked nothing like a normal stellar death.
The event was later named SN 2023zkd. Telescopes around the world quickly turned their eyes to it because the way its brightness shifted over time was unusual. Instead of a clean, sharp peak, the light curve showed two distinct rises—an immediate sign that something more complex was going on.
At first, scientists thought it could be the collapse of a single massive star—maybe a luminous blue variable or a carbon-rich Wolf-Rayet. Both are huge, unstable stars known to end as supernovae. But the details didn’t quite fit. Even the idea of a Wolf-Rayet star transitioning into a different phase before exploding was considered, then ruled out.
Unusual explanation for the phenomenon: It hit its own fragment
The best explanation NASA has is a rare one: a binary-driven merger. In this scenario, a 30-solar-mass star had spent years losing material to a companion—likely a 10-solar-mass black hole. When the end finally came, the star’s blast wave slammed into the material it had shed earlier, creating the first peak of light. The second came from the actual explosion. The findings, published in The Astrophysical Journal by Alexander Gagliano and his team, suggest that we may have witnessed an instability-induced merger between a star and a black hole—an event astronomers believe must be extremely uncommon.
NASA’s tech can help in future missions: The Vera Rubin will be ready
With NASA’s Vera Rubin Observatory and its massive sky survey, detections like SN 2023zkd could become more common. The observatory’s real-time data processing will allow astronomers to catch these rare cosmic fireworks almost as they happen, alongside projects like Pan-STARRS that are also preparing for the flood of discoveries. The observatory made its first discovery hours after it started working, and already assisted in other telescopes’ business to help identify different signals sent to Earth. Meanwhile, the James Webb is still the main telescope in space, but on our planet, it will be difficult to dethrone the Vera Rubin.