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A team of scientists has finally solved the mystery of a dazzling “super-supernova” that shone 30 times brighter than expected when it was discovered four years ago.

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“PS1-10afx looked a lot like a Type Ia supernova,” lead researcher Robert Quimby said. “But it was just too bright.”

The stellar explosion baffled scientists when it was spotted nine billion light years away by the Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System 1 in Hawaii in 2010.

“PS1-10afx was different in just about every way,” Quimby said. “It evolved too fast, its host galaxy is too big, and it was way, way too red.”

It’s unique characteristics led some experts to conclude that a completely new type of superluminous supernova had been discovered. Some astronomers even thought that existing models used to classify stellar explosions must be wrong.

But Quimby’s research team had a different idea, and according to a new study in the journal, Science, PS1-10afx wasn’t really a “super-supernova” after all. It was a typical explosion that happened to be amplified by a massive galaxy.