supernova

noun su·per·no·va \ ˌsü-pər-ˈnō-və \

|Updated on: 20 Jul 2018

Definition of supernova

1 : the explosion of a star in which the star may reach a maximum intrinsic luminosity one billion times that of the sun

2 : one that explodes into prominence or popularity; also : superstar

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Examples of supernova in a Sentence

tragically, a shoulder injury cut short the pitching career of one of baseball's brightest supernovas

Recent Examples of supernova from the Web

Since the 1950s, when neutrinos were detected for the first time, researchers have observed low-energy versions of these ghostly particles coming from the sun and a 1987 supernova in a nearby galaxy.

— author: sarah kaplan, Anchorage Daily News, "In a cosmic first, scientists detect ‘ghost particles’ from a distant galaxy," 12 July 2018
Congratulations on your 5th, honoured to share my 4th birthday with you x x pic.twitter.com/C5uuskM9S0 — florence welch (@flo_tweet) June 29, 2018 Drake might be a solar eclipse — a supernova, honestly — but trust: the world keeps spinning.

— refinery29.com, "Love It Or Hate It, You Listened: Drake Broke All The Streaming Records With Scorpion," 1 July 2018
The researchers think that these ions may have started out in the hearts of stars that went supernova, then were thrown out of their home galaxies by these explosive stellar deaths.

— amina khan, latimes.com, "After years of searching, scientists can finally account for all the normal matter in the universe," 20 June 2018
James already owns two homes and a film production company in Los Angeles, where the star could become a supernova.

— tom withers, The Seattle Times, "Home or away? LeBron’s summer of suspense has started," 9 June 2018
For example, astrophysicists modeling supernova explosions still struggle to make their virtual stellar time bombs go off.

— adrian cho, Science | AAAS, "Galaxy simulations are at last matching reality—and producing surprising insights into cosmic evolution," 30 May 2018
An amateur fossil-hunter in Maryland found rare evidence of dinosaurs and mammals interacting, and an Italian locksmith captured a never-before seen first burst of light from the supernova explosion of a massive star.

— david grossman, Popular Mechanics, "Scientists Discover Giant Worms Invaded France Almost 20 Years Ago," 23 May 2018
That triggers a burst of star formation and then a subsequent burst of supernova explosions as the most massive of these stars quickly burn out and die.

— dennis overbye, New York Times, "Black Hole Drags Star to Dusty Death," 14 June 2018
Those groups of singing, dancing heartthrobs went supernova, as the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC led the way to Diamond sales and total cultural omnipresence.

— billboard staff, Billboard, "The 98 Greatest Songs of 1998: Critics' Picks," 29 May 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'supernova.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Did You Know?

A nova, despite its name, isn't actually a "new" star, but rather one that wasn't noticed until it exploded, when it may increase in brightness by a million times before returning to its previous state a few days later. A supernova is far larger; a star in its supernova state may emit a billion times as much light as previously. After a few weeks it begins to dim, until it eventually ceases to exist; it's often replaced by a black hole. (Though remains that were shot out into space may survive; those of a great supernova seen in A.D. 1054 are now known as the Crab Nebula.) All this may serve as a warning to those human stars whose fame explodes too rapidly; supernovas of this kind have sometimes vanished by the following year.