“Impossibly” large stellar explosions identified

A newly identified type of stellar explosion breaks all the old rules — and records — for such explosions. The “superluminous” outbursts have been coming to scientists’ attention since the end of the last decade, but no one knew what they were at first. The new study proposes that the blasts are probably associated with the formation of a magnetar, an extraordinarily magnetized, dizzyingly fast-spinning neutron star.