Super-luminous Supernova

Researchers at the ARIES have discovered that the SN 2010kd- a super-luminous supernova exploded rapidly but decayed slowly and the amount of nickel ejected from it is much more than from a usual supernova.

About Super-luminous Supernova

Supernova is the energetic explosion that occurs during the last stages of a massive star. These transient astronomical events release a huge amount of energy and can be observed even from our solar system. A super-luminous supernova is a special type of stellar explosion that ejects 10 times or more energy than a regular supernova.

SN 2010kd

The SN 2010kd is a super-luminous supernova located 1.5 Giga Light Years away from our solar system and was discovered embedded in a dwarf host galaxy towards the Leo Constellation. It was discovered to have exploded at a higher velocity but decayed at a slower pace than the usual supernovae. The implication of the finding is that such supernovae could be a different type of progenitor for stars.

ROTSE

The SN 2010kd was discovered using the Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment (ROTSE-IIIb) telescope as a part of ROTSE supernova verification project in 2010.  The ROTSE is a multi-telescope experiment using 4 telescopes in Australia, Namibia, Turkey and USA.