February 24, 2017
By Donna Weaver
Three decades ago, (click here) astronomers spotted one of the brightest exploding stars in more than 400 years. The titanic supernova, called Supernova 1987A (SN 1987A), blazed with the power of 100 million suns for several months following its discovery on Feb. 23, 1987....
It occurred approximately 51.4 kiloparsecs (168,000 ly) from Earth. This was close enough that it was easily visible to the naked eye and it could be seen from the Southern Hemisphere. It was the closest observed supernova since SN 1604, which occurred in the Milky Way itself
