Black holes are dark, menacing objects with gravity so intense that not even light can escape, so you don’t want to mess with them. A recent discovery of one of the strangest supernovas ever observed reveals the tragic story of a star that tried to defy the powerful pull of a nearby black hole but later conceded in an explosive death.

A team of astronomers discovered the unusual supernova, dubbed SN 2023zkd, while digging through observations of particularly interesting targets gathered by telescopes around the world. The stellar explosion may have been sparked by a deadly encounter with a black hole, leading to the untimely detonation of the star. The discovery, detailed in a new paper published in the Astrophysical Journal, marks the strongest evidence to date of cosmic interactions b

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