'Supernova showdown': White dwarfs near Earth set to detonate with blinding force

Produced by: Manoj Kumar

Stellar Spiral

Two dying stars locked in a fiery tango spiral inward, racing toward a cataclysmic end—first of its kind spotted this close, say Warwick astronomers in Nature.

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Cosmic Collision

Destined to crash in a cosmic explosion, this white dwarf duo will birth a Type 1a supernova—one of the brightest blasts in the known universe.

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Binary Bomb

Orbiting just 1/60th of the Earth-Sun distance, the white dwarfs are on a death course fueled by gravity and mass, an astrophysical time bomb ticking down.

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Brightest Doom

When they collide, their light will outshine the Moon by 10 times—this celestial flare will mark one of the brightest shows the galaxy can offer.

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Galactic First

It’s the first-ever confirmed double white dwarf system set to explode in our galaxy—a long-theorized event now backed by live data.

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Death Spiral

Warwick-led astronomers spotted the pair speeding toward each other—a slow-motion spiral that ends in a thermonuclear death trillions of years from now.

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Silent Witness

We won’t be around to see the blast—it’s 23 billion years away—but the system gives us clues about cosmic fate and stellar endings.

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Moon Killer

If alive to witness it, we’d see a flash outshine our moon—a supernova so bright, its light could dominate Earth’s sky.

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Heavyweights Collide

Combined, the duo weighs 1.56 suns—making it the heaviest white dwarf binary ever observed, a cosmic heavyweight bout with a deadly finale.

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