New observations suggest that certain extremely bright supernovae are not the nuclear explosions of very massive stars. Instead, they may be ordinary-mass events lit up by a potent central fountain of magnetic energy. See Letter p.346
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X-RAY: NASA/CXC/SAO/F. SEWARD; OPTICAL: NASA/ESA/ASU/J. HESTER & A. LO LL; INFRARED: NASA/JPL-CALTECH/UNIV. MINN./R. GEHRZ
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Kasen, D. Super-luminous supernovae on the rise. Nature 502, 310–312 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/502310a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/502310a
