Credit: Background, NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration and Acero et. al. 2026; inset, NOT+ALFSOC/Bose et al. 2020
Powering Superluminous Supernovae
A massive star, about 10 times or more as massive as our Sun, is a dangerous thing, Such stars burn through their store of thermonuclear fuel at a prodigious rate, and, once that fuel is spent, the core of the star collapses, generating an extreme compact object like a neutron star (or an even more extreme black hole) while the star's outer layers are blown away in a titanic explosion called a supernova. For some reason, a small subset of supernovae seems to be about ten to one hundred times brighter than typical supernovae. The nature of these "superluminous supernovae" have puzzled astronomers for decades. Three explanations are plausible: that these superluminous supernovae represent the formation of a strange neutron star called a magnetar, with a magnetic field about 1000 times stronger than the magnetic field of a typical neutron star; or that the progenitor star is so massive they produce a weird "pair-instability supernova"; or these superluminous explosions occur in unusually dense circumstellar cocoons, which produces an enhanced interaction with the supernova blast wave. High-energy gamma-ray emission from superluminous supernovae provides critical clues to distinguish between these alternatives. But previous studies of gamma-ray emission from superluminous supernovae yielded only upper limits to the gamma-ray flux. Now, an exciting new study by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope of the six nearest superluminous supernovae detected gamma-ray emission from a superluminous supernova called SN 2017egm. The false-color image above shows the Fermi Large Area Telescope gamma-ray image from a wide region of the sky around SN 2017egm in the interval July 5, 2017 to October 25, 2017 (43 to 155 days after the supernova was discovered optically). Red/yellow colors indicate greater statistical likelihood that observed gamma rays are associated with the supernova. The inset shows a visible light image of SN 2017egm's host spiral galaxy on July 1, 2017 at much higher spatial resolution, near peak brightness of the supernova; SN 2017egm is the bright point source just to the left of the center of the host galaxy. Researchers believe the gamma-ray emission indicates the birth of a new magnetar, produced from the violent death and core-collapse of some massive star in a spiral arm of the host galaxy.
Published: June 1, 2026
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Page Author: Dr. Michael F. Corcoran
Last modified Monday, 01-Jun-2026 11:36:41 EDT