as in supernova
astronomy
a star that suddenly increases greatly in brightness and then within a few months or years becomes less bright again
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Recent Examples of nova
Even though novas are exceptionally bright, supernovas are brighter—reaching billions of times brighter than the sun at their peak.
—
Elizabeth Gamillo, Smithsonian Magazine, 3 July 2025
Recorded live at the Lincoln Center, the band plays a bossa-nova take on the song while Gaga sings solo, wearing one of Cher’s own wigs.
—Kristen S. Hé, Vulture, 19 Mar. 2025
To get a separate measure of how unusual this is, the researchers placed 8 million novas around the center of the galaxy, with the distribution being random but biased to match the galaxy's brightness under the assumption that novas will be more frequent in areas with more stars.
—John Timmer, Ars Technica, 27 Sep. 2024
Elizabeth Gamillo, Smithsonian Magazine, 3 July 2025
Recorded live at the Lincoln Center, the band plays a bossa-nova take on the song while Gaga sings solo, wearing one of Cher’s own wigs.
—Kristen S. Hé, Vulture, 19 Mar. 2025
To get a separate measure of how unusual this is, the researchers placed 8 million novas around the center of the galaxy, with the distribution being random but biased to match the galaxy's brightness under the assumption that novas will be more frequent in areas with more stars.
—John Timmer, Ars Technica, 27 Sep. 2024
Recent Examples of Synonyms for nova
Noun
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The nebula has been observed shining in radio, X-ray and visible light, as the cloud of stellar material pushed outward by a supernova explosion 10,000 years ago comes into contact with the mass of interstellar gas beyond.—
Anthony Wood,
Space.com,
24 Oct. 2025
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Hubbard could be eased back into action, given that Dowdle has recently gone supernova.—
Andy Behrens,
New York Times,
17 Oct. 2025
Noun
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This observation seemed to support the pulsar theory, with experts theorizing that the glow would have taken a more spherical form if its source were dark matter.—
Jacopo Prisco,
CNN Money,
20 Oct. 2025
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Science fiction has, of course, been portraying exoplanets for decades, and in 1992, radio astronomers Dale Frail and Aleksander Wolszczan discovered planets orbiting a pulsar, the spinning remnant of a massive star that has gone supernova.—
Keith Cooper,
Space.com,
6 Oct. 2025
Noun
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Found by Hubble before JWST’s launch, GNz7q looked like a mix of a galaxy and a quasar.—
Big Think,
Big Think,
20 Oct. 2025
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Additionally, this quasar is also producing jets of particles moving at nearly the speed of light, a rare feature among quasars.—
Rupendra Brahambhatt,
Interesting Engineering,
21 Sep. 2025
Noun
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For as much planning that goes into a stadium flip of this magnitude, after all — the weather is the variable that isn’t in Tepper Sports’ hands.—
Alex Zietlow,
Charlotte Observer,
28 Oct. 2025
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That will be the key variable in this entire season.—
Jeff Howe,
New York Times,
25 Oct. 2025
Noun
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The album title is a reference to a red supergiant star 10,000 light-years away from Earth.—
Tomás Mier,
Rolling Stone,
18 Sep. 2025
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Skywatchers on Saturday night will be treated to the gorgeous sight of a waxing crescent moon close to Antares, an unmistakably bright red supergiant star shining in the south.—
Jamie Carter,
Forbes.com,
29 Aug. 2025
Noun
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As the collapsed core of a massive star, a neutron star is a small but incredibly dense object, packing up to three times the mass of our sun into a small volume.—
Keith Cooper,
Space.com,
24 Oct. 2025
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In the 10 years since then, scientists have detected hundreds of black holes coming together, as well as other extreme cosmic events like neutron stars colliding and black holes merging with a neutron star.—
Nell Greenfieldboyce,
NPR,
11 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Nova.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/nova. Accessed 6 Nov. 2025.
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