Kepler's Supernova
Supernova visible from Earth in the 17th century
Why this is trending
Interest in “Kepler's Supernova” spiked on Wikipedia on 2026-07-20.
Categorised under Science & Nature, this article fits a familiar pattern. Science and technology topics tend to trend after breakthroughs, space missions, health announcements, or widely shared research findings.
By monitoring millions of daily Wikipedia page views, GlyphSignal helps you spot cultural moments as they happen and understand the stories behind the numbers.
Key Takeaways
- SN 1604 , also known as Kepler's Supernova , Kepler's Nova or Kepler's Star , was a Type Ia supernova that occurred in the Milky Way, in the constellation Ophiuchus.
- Before the adoption of the current naming system for supernovae, it was named for Johannes Kepler, the German astronomer who described it in De Stella Nova .
- It was visible during the day for over three weeks.
- It was the second supernova to be observed in a generation (after SN 1572 seen by Tycho Brahe in Cassiopeia).
- SN 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud was visible to the naked eye at night.
Source note: This page combines GlyphSignal analysis with attributed reference material from Wikipedia. GlyphSignal adds trend context, traffic history, categorization, and editorial interpretation. See how we build these pages.
Source summary
WikipediaSN 1604, also known as Kepler's Supernova, Kepler's Nova or Kepler's Star, was a Type Ia supernova that occurred in the Milky Way, in the constellation Ophiuchus. Appearing in 1604, it is the most recent supernova in the Milky Way galaxy to have been unquestionably observed by the naked eye, occurring no farther than 6 kiloparsecs (20,000 light-years) from Earth. Before the adoption of the current naming system for supernovae, it was named for Johannes Kepler, the German astronomer who described it in De Stella Nova.
Visible to the naked eye, Kepler's Star was brighter at its peak than any other star in the night sky, with an apparent magnitude of −2.5. It was visible during the day for over three weeks. Records of its sighting exist in European, Chinese, Korean, and Arabic sources.
It was the second supernova to be observed in a generation (after SN 1572 seen by Tycho Brahe in Cassiopeia). No further supernovae have since been observed with certainty in the Milky Way, though many others outside the galaxy have been seen since S Andromedae in 1885. SN 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud was visible to the naked eye at night.
Content sourced from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA 4.0
