Scientists: hypernovas may have never existed at all

Astronomers at UCL found that the odd chemical makeup of stars in the Milky Way halo can be explained by ordinary asymmetric supernovas and neutron star mergers, not hypothetical hypernovas. The work was published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

• Hypernovas were proposed to explain stars with unusual element mixes
• New models account for uneven, non-spherical supernova ejecta
• Three of four studied stars fit ordinary supernova origins
• A red giant rich in silver and uranium came from a neutron star merger plus supernova