One of the closest stellar explosions for years has been spotted in a relatively nearby galaxy that is a favourite target for amateur astronomers. The supernova appeared in the galaxy Messier 82, or M82 for short, which lies about 11.4 million light-years away, right on our doorstep in cosmic terms.

When University of California, Berkeley, astronomer Alex Filippenko's research team looked for the supernova in data collected by the Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope (KAIT) at Lick Observatory near San Jose, Calif., they discovered that the robotic telescope had actually taken a photo of it 37 hours after it appeared, unnoticed, on Jan. 14.

Combining this observation with another chance observation by a Japanese amateur astronomer, Filippenko's team was able to calculate that SN 2014J had unusual characteristics – it brightened faster than expected for a Type Ia supernova and, even more intriguing, it exhibited the same unexpected, rapid brightening as another supernova that KAIT discovered and imaged last year – SN 2013dy.

"Now, two of the three most recent and best-observed Type Ia supernovae are weird, giving us new clues to how stars explode," said Filippenko, referring to a third, though apparently 'normal,' Type Ia supernova, SN 2011fe, discovered three years ago. "This may be teaching us something general about Type Ia supernovae that theorists need to understand. Maybe what we think of as 'normal' behavior for these supernovae is actually unusual, and this weird behavior is the new normal."