as in supernova
astronomy
a star that suddenly increases greatly in brightness and then within a few months or years becomes less bright again
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Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for nova
Noun
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The imagery shows the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, the dusty nebula NGC 3603, the spiral galaxy Messier 94 and the galaxy cluster ZwCl 0024+1652.
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The visit then took us into the future with the star going supernova, putting on a show that no one on Earth has seen for centuries.
Noun
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That is because, whereas previous research has suggested just a few hundred pulsars could be enough to account for the Galactic Center Excess, these findings indicate that the pulsar population at the heart of the Milky Way would have to be greater than 35,000.
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In 2023 a collaboration of radio astronomers reported tiny deviations in the timing of these flashes from dozens of pulsars in the Milky Way.
Noun
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As such, quasars are some of the brightest objects in the universe.
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The team spotted the distant quasar, an actively feeding supermassive black hole, using observations from the Subaru Telescope.
Noun
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For corporate and investor decision-makers the variable that now dominates AI infrastructure economics is not model performance or chip cost curves.
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But consumer demand is the big variable impacting companies’ gross margin, Sole noted.
Noun
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May's full Blue Moon put on a dazzling display over the weekend, flooding the night sky with moonlight as the red supergiant star Antares glowed nearby.
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Located 7,200 light-years away, Cygnus X-1 features not only a black hole — the first one ever identified more than a half-century ago — but a blue supergiant star, its constant companion.
Noun
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When this phenomenon happens, all the matter in the neutron star fuses into one big atom, with a density of about a million billion g/cc.
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Hopefully, this will help determine whether they’re sparked by an eruption from a single neutron star, or when two of these tiny but massive bodies collide.
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“Nova.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/nova. Accessed 7 Jul. 2026.
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