Supernova

A supernova is an exploding star that can briefly outshine a galaxy — the 1987 one was visible to the naked eye.

A supernova is the explosion of a massive star collapsing at the end of its life, or of a white dwarf pushed past its limit, briefly shining as bright as an entire galaxy. SN 1987A, discovered in February 1987 in the Large Magellanic Cloud about 168,000 light-years away, was bright enough to see with the naked eye, and Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescope still track the ring structures in its remains today. The material scattered by such blasts becomes the raw ingredient of the next generation of stars and planets.