'Champagne Supernova' breaks astronomical rules

Astronomers using Mauna Kea telescopes to study stars exploding as supernovae saw something so surprising they say it “has opened up a Pandora’s box.”

The astronomers discovered a supernova more massive than they believed possible, which may change their thinking about how stars explode as supernovae, they said in a paper published today in the journal Nature.

Astronomers from the California Institute of Technology, University of Toronto and University of California at Berkeley made the discovery during a survey for distant supernovae at the Canada France Hawaii Telescope.