<\/p>\n With this fleet of telescopes, astronomers charted how the light of the supernova, located 500 million light-years away, changed over time. They reported their results in two<\/a> papers<\/a> published July 14 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.<\/p>\n Latest Videos FromLive Science<\/p>\n Each science team verified the “shock breakout” \u202a\u2014\u202c the point when a supernova emits its first light from the explosion as a huge shock wave. The recently detected supernova is only the second stellar explosion in the past 20 years in which a shock wave was observed, because these events tend to be short \u2014 only seconds to hours, the researchers noted.<\/p>\n They classified the stellar explosion as a Type Ic broad-lined (Ic-BL) supernova, meaning that the blast included jets with material moving close to light speed. This type of supernova is often associated with gamma-ray bursts, which are extremely powerful flashes of high-energy radiation from space. However, the recently detected supernova presented some surprises: Its shock breakout was the faintest seen in an Ic-BL supernova, and no gamma-ray bursts were observed.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n “Follow-up observations using the most sensitive facilities found no evidence” of the gamma-ray bursts, Brendan O’Connor<\/a>, an astrophysicist at Carnegie Mellon University and co-author on one of the studies, said in a statement<\/a>. “One possibility is that the jet was ‘choked,’ either by the surface of the star or by circumstellar material surrounding the star.”<\/p>\n Telescopes of the world unite<\/p>\n \n The Vera C. Rubin Observatory happened to be monitoring the area (left) when the supernova erupted. Rubin and Dark Energy Camera images of the blast are shown in boxes to the right.<\/p>\n (Image credit: NSF\u2013DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory\/NOIRLab\/SLAC\/AURA)<\/p>\n The Rubin telescope, located in Chile, happened to spot the explosion because it was viewing that particular patch of the sky at the time, known as the COSMOS Deep Drilling Field.<\/p>\n “Thanks to Rubin’s rapid cadence and unprecedented sensitivity, continued observations are expected to provide detailed, long-term records of the supernova as it evolves for years to come,” the science teams said in the statement. The Rubin Observatory will spend the next decade mapping the entire southern sky many times over, creating a time-lapse movie of the cosmos expected to reveal millions of supernovas<\/a>, asteroids, comets, and other transient events.<\/p>\n As Rubin spots events in the sky, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument on the National Science Foundation’s Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona is tasked with springing into action for follow-up observations. The instrument confirmed the recently detected explosion as an Ic-BL supernova.<\/p>\n When the scientists dove into 10 years of data from the 570-megapixel Department of Energy Dark Energy Camera on the National Science Foundation’s V\u00edctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope in Chile, they found a “blue source” just where the supernova later occurred, revealing clues about what the star system and its environment looked like before it exploded.<\/p>\n What to read next<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/SmWw4vrmNNhv35xEVj6pbY.jpg\")
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