Photo: An artist's impression of the record-breakingly powerful, superluminous supernova ASASSN-15lh as it would appear from an exoplanet located about 10,000 light years away in the host galaxy of the supernova. (Credit: Beijing Planetarium / Jin Ma)

Astronomers and astrophysicists from OSU and around the world are viewing a ball of hot gas billions of light years away that they suspect may be the result of the most powerful supernovae ever seen.

Read more about this ground-breaking discovery by following these links:

https://news.osu.edu/news/2016/01/14/brightlight/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/found-the-most-powerful-supernova-ever-seen/

Ohio State co-authors on the study include John Beacom, professor of physics and astronomy and director of CCAPP; graduate students Thomas Holoien, Jonathan Brown, A. Bianca Danilet and Gregory Simonion; and Ohi State alumni Ben Shappee, now at the Carnegie OBservatories, and Jose Prieto, now at the Unviersidad Diego Portales and Millennium Institue of Astrophysics.

This work is primarily funded by the National Science Foundation and CCAPP.