ALL meanings of supernova
su·per·no·va
S s - noun plural supernova the explosion of a star, possibly caused by gravitational collapse, during which the star's luminosity increases by as much as 20 magnitudes and most of the star's mass is blown away at very high velocity, sometimes leaving behind an extremely dense core. 1
- noun plural supernova the star undergoing such an explosion. 1
- noun supernova astronomy: exploding star 1
- countable noun supernova A supernova is an exploding star. 0
- noun supernova a star that explodes catastrophically owing to either instabilities following the exhaustion of its nuclear fuel or gravitational collapse following the accretion of matter from an orbiting companion star, becoming for a few days up to one hundred million times brighter than the sun. The expanding shell of debris (the supernova remnant) creates a nebula that radiates radio waves, X-rays, and light, for hundreds or thousands of years 0
- noun supernova a rare, extremely bright nova that suddenly increases up to a billion times in brightness and reaches an absolute magnitude of c. -16 0