The M82 Cigar Galaxy, located 12 million light-years from Earth, was shaken by a powerful supernova explosion.
A similar event has not occurred since 1987, when a supernova blew up in the Large Magellanic Cloud, located 168 000 light-years from Earth, and the explosion of the star was visible with the naked eye.
Astronomers from the the observatory at Apache Point in the US have been able to observe the spectrum of the new bright object in the galaxy located in the Ursa Major constellation.
Experts have labeled it as a Type Ia supernova, which occurs in binary star systems of a white dwarf and red giant.
In such systems, it is typical for one of the stars to pull in mass from the other, until it accumulates enough for a collapse and explosion.
According to the estimates of scientists, the supernova is currently expanding with a speed of around 12 427 miles (20 000 km) per second, its brightness continues to grow and it is expected that it will reach its maximum brightness after about 2 weeks.
The last explosion of a supernova in our own galaxy happened around 400 years ago.
A few days ago, an international team of astronomers announced that they have discovered a new type of hypervelocity stars that move so fast that it is possible for them to break free from the Milky Way.
These discovered stars are equal in size to our own Sun.
"The original hypervelocity stars were large blue stars, most likely originating from the center of the galaxy. The newly discovered stars are relatively small - approximately the size of the Sun, and the surprising thing is that not one of them appears to be originating from the center, " announced Lauren Palladino.
Palladino made the discovery while mapping the Milky Way as part of the SDSS project, whose mission is to count the stars found in one quarter of our sky.
Palladino was surprised, since usually runaway stars are "thrown out" of the galaxy by the supermassive black hole in its center.
