When Stars Explode

Over 75 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo (The Virgin) lies NGC 4981 — a spiral galaxy with a rather explosive past.

NGC 4981 was discovered on 17 April 1784 by William Herschel, and subsequently documented in John Dreyer’s New General Catalog. Over a century later, on 23 April 1968, the galaxy once again made it into the records when a Type la supernova — a stellar explosion in a binary star system — occurred within its confines: SN 1968I. SN 1968I, however, was not to be the galaxy’s only supernova. Decades later, the core collapse of a massive star led to supernova SN 2007c.   Read full article here