On April 27, NASA’s Fermi and Swift satellites detected a record-setting burst from a dying star located in a nearby galaxy. Most likely the result of a massive supernova, it produced the highest-energy light ever detected by scientists.

Astronomers working at NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have captured the most detailed image yet taken of a Type Ia supernova. And this particular supernova is one that people observed all over the world, when it first happened.

Scientists working at the University of Warwick have identified an undocumented type of gamma-ray burst, the product of massive stars destroyed in a way previously unknown to astronomers.

Everyone, say hello to Type Iax, a new classification of supernova that astronomers are calling “the runt of the supernova litter.” But these celestial blasts are hardly subtle; they're a newly documented and surprisingly frequent subcategory of supernova in which helium-sucking white dwarfs survive the ensuing…

So apparently there are big burning things in the sky called stars. They are unstable, and I don't want to scare you, but they occasionally explode. When they explode, you don't want to be near them. But how far are you supposed to get away? It doesn't really matter, since if we're too close to any star there's nothing …

Although every supernova has some things in common — a big boom, for example — there are plenty of different types. And different reasons why a star might go nova.

Kathryn Aurora Gray, aged 10, discovered a magnitude 17 supernova on New Year's Eve, in the constellation of Camelopardalis. Gray had learned a 14-year-old was the youngest to find a supernova and felt sure she could beat that.

A 6-trillion-mile-wide ring of gas encircles a supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud, Supernova 1987A, and the explosions from the supernova are lighting it up like a candle, creating what will become a glowing ring.

Check out this artist's impression of an super-violent supernova. The Very Large Telescope managed to obtain the first 3-D view of material after a star's explosion, traveling 100 million kilometers per hour. And check out a video below.

This area near the core of the Pinwheel Galaxy turns out to be bursting with newborn stars, some only a few million years old. And there are about 60 supernova remnants, showing the full stellar life-cycle. [Hubble via Wired]