Star's 4 Million MPH Explosion Captured By Astronomers

A team of astronomers from the UK and Germany found a nuclear explosion on the surface of a star 5,000 light-years from Earth. It resulted in a blast wave moving at over 1,700 km per second (one thousand miles per second or almost four million miles per hour).

The discovery was made by bringing together many of the world's radio telescopes into arrays capable of seeing the aftermath of the explosion in incredible detail. The star was in an area of sky on 5 millionths of a degree – the size of a football seen from 2,700 km (1,700 miles) away.

The Times has an artist's impression of what the explosion may have looked like.