CNN)When a dead star plunges into an active star, expect an explosion of astronomical proportions that isn't supposed to happen yet.
Astronomers were able to work out this stellar puzzle after tracing an unusual burst of bright radio waves in 2017. The radio waves were captured by the Very Large Array Sky Survey, a collaborative effort to observe the night sky and search for radio wavelengths.
Scientists determined that the flare of radio waves was caused when a dead star, either a black hole or a neutron star, catastrophically collided with a companion star. The study published in the journal Science last week.
"Massive stars usually explode as supernovae when they run out of nuclear fuel," said Gregg Hallinan, study author and professor of astronomy at the California Institute of Technology, in a statement. "But in this case, an invading black hole or neutron star has prematurely triggered its companion star to explode."
Astronomers have never been able to observe this process, so this marks the first time this type of supernova has been confirmed by scientists.
