Low Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (LRIS) on the Keck I telescope tagged posts

This is an artist’s impression of a Supernova. Credit: NASA/ESA/G. BACON (STSci)

Supernova discovery challenges known theories of the death of stars. An international team of astronomers led by Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO) has made a bizarre discovery; a star that refuses to stop shining. Supernovae, the explosions of stars, have been observed in the thousands and in all cases they marked the death of a star. But a remarkable exception is a star that exploded multiple times over a period of more than 50 years. Their observations, which include data from Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaii, are challenging existing theories on these cosmic catastrophes.

“The spectra we obtained at Keck Observatory showed that this supernova looked like nothing we had ever seen before...