# Neutron Stars Born: The 1933 Supernova Discovery That Changed Everything

# This is your Astronomy Tonight podcast.

Welcome back, stargazers! Today we're celebrating January 5th, and let me tell you, this date has some absolutely *stellar* history—and I mean that literally!

On January 5th, 1933, one of the most profound discoveries in human history was announced: **the first evidence of a supernova in another galaxy**. Astronomer Fritz Zwicky and his colleague Walter Baade at the Mount Wilson Observatory were observing when they detected an incredibly bright explosion in the galaxy NGC 884. But here's where it gets really exciting: they proposed something revolutionary for the time—that this explosion represented the birth of something entirely new to science: a **neutron star**.

Think about that for a moment. These weren't just watching fireworks in space; they were witnessing the violent death throes of a massive star, the complete gravitational collapse of matter so extreme that an object the size of a city could weigh more than our entire Sun. They even coined the term "supernova"—literally meaning "new star"—because it appeared as brilliantly as if a brand new star had ignited in the heavens.

This discovery fundamentally changed our understanding of stellar evolution and the universe's violent, dynamic nature. Neutron stars would eventually lead us to pulsars, black holes, and gravitational wave astronomy. One observation in 1933 rippled through the cosmos of human knowledge for nearly a century!

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