Single galaxy found to have seven supernovae

National Geographic : A record-breaking seven supernovae have been observed via interferometry in Arp 220, a highly active galaxy 250 million light-years from Earth. The heart of Arp 220 is obscured by dust that visible wavelengths can’t penetrate but radio waves can. Fabien Batejat, a PhD student at Chalmers University of Technology in Onsala, Sweden, and colleagues used data from 57 of the world’s largest radio telescopes to create high-resolution images of the galaxy’s interior. By watching how 40 radio sources near the center of Arp 220 changed over time, Batejat and his colleagues found that seven of them were stars that had exploded around the same time. Hosting an intense burst of star formation as well as star death, Arp 220 probably behaves more like young galaxies than its local contemporaries. Batejat hopes that his team’s discovery might lead to greater understanding of how stars formed and died in the early universe.