July 31, 2025
The elements that make you — the calcium in your bones, the oxygen in your lungs — were scattered across space by dying stars long before...
Supernova 2025rbs in NGC 7331
Birthday · July 31, 2025
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APOD published July 31, 2025. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
A long time ago in a galaxy 50 million light-years away, a star exploded. Light from that supernova was first detected by telescopes on planet Earth on July 14th though, and the extragalactic transient is now known to astronomers as supernova 2025rbs. Presently the brightest supernova in planet Earth's sky, 2025rbs is a Type Ia supernova, likely caused by the thermonuclear detonation of a white dwarf star that accreted material from a companion in a binary star system. Type Ia supernovae are used as standard candles to establish the distance scale of the universe. The host galaxy of 2025rbs is NGC 7331. Itself a bright spiral galaxy in the northern constellation Pegasus, NGC 7331 is often touted as an analog to our own Milky Way.