At its peak‚ it “shone with 570-billion times the brightness of the Sun”. “If that statistic does not impress‚ consider that this luminosity level is approximately 20 times the entire output of the 100-billion stars comprising our Milky Way galaxy‚” researchers said.And a telescope in South Africa help record ASASSN-15lh as “the most powerful supernova discovered in human history”‚ according to Subo Dong‚ an astronomer at the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics (KIAA) at Peking University.The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) in Sutherland made a “major contribution” in the unveiling of “a cosmic explosion about 200 times more powerful than a typical supernova‚…more than twice as luminous as the previous record-holding supernova”.ASASSN-15lh was first spotted in June 2015 by twin telescopes in Cerro Tololo‚ Chile‚ then “a spectrum taken at the 2.5m Du Pont telescope in Chile suggested that ASASSN-15lh might indeed be a superluminous supernova”.“To prove the record-breaking nature of this supernova explosion‚ crucially‚ its distance had to be established. This was achieved with spectroscopic observations taken by SALT‚” researchers said.“Upon seeing the spectral signatures from SALT and realising that we had discovered the most powerful supernova yet‚ I was too excited to sleep the rest of the night‚” Dong gushed.“This impressive result highlights strengths of SALT and the benefits of Chinese-South African collaboration in astronomy‚ and we are looking forward to strengthening such collaboration in future”‚ added Petri Vaisanen‚ head of science operations at SALT.Dong said the “power source for ASASSN-15lh” is still unknown‚ but one hypothesis “is that superluminous supernovae’s stupendous energy comes from highly magnetised‚ rapidly spinning neutron stars called magnetars‚ which are the leftover‚ hyper-compressed cores of massive‚ exploded stars”.“But‚” said the reserachers’ statement‚ “ASASSN-15lh is so luminous that this compelling magnetar scenario falls short of the required energies.“Instead‚ ASASSN-15lh-esque supernovae might be triggered by the demise of incredibly massive stars that go beyond the top tier of masses most astronomers would speculate are even attainable.”..