Christopher Kochanek, professor of astronomy and Ohio Eminent Scholar in Observational Cosmology; and astronomy professor Krzystof Stanek, are co-authors of a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal, providing their latest findings from the first galaxy survey of its kind.

For the past three years, Kochanek and Stanek have been working at the Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona, scanning 25 nearby galaxies for stars that brighten and dim in unusual ways, hoping to catch a few that are about to meet their end.

An unnamed binary system in the Whirlpool Galaxy was the first among the stars they've cataloged to produce a supernova.

Read more: http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/deathstar.htm