NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has detected gamma-ray signals from the superluminous supernova SN 2017egm, providing evidence that it was powered by a rapidly spinning magnetar. The discovery marks the first confirmed gamma-ray detection from such an extreme stellar explosion. The findings were published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
The supernova erupted in the galaxy NGC 3191, located about 440 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. It is one of the closest superluminous supernovae observed from Earth. Researchers analyzed years of Fermi data and found that only SN 2017egm among six nearby candidates showed clear gamma-ray evidence.