A mammoth star explosion known as SN2016aps, which occurred in a galaxy about 3.6 billion light-years from Earth, is the brightest supernova ever seen, a new study reports.

We measure supernovae using two scales: the total energy of the explosion, and the amount of that energy that is emitted as observable light, or radiation.

In a typical supernova, the radiation is less than 1% of the total energy; but in SN2016aps, we found the radiation was five times the explosion energy of a normal-sized supernova. This is the most light ever seen emitted by a supernova.

[livescience.com]