The explosion at the surface sets out the final journey of a dying star

An international astronomical group lead by Ji-an Jiang, a PhD student from the University of Tokyo discovered a Type Ia supernova (named as "MUSSES1604D") within one day after the explosion by using the world-best wide-field camera mounted on the 8.2-m Subaru telescope, the Hyper Suprime-Cam. Follow-up observations carried out by eight telescopes over the world show that MUSSES1604D is significantly different from previously observed objects, especially for the abnormal brightness variance in the first few days after the explosion. Our further analysis surprisingly found that the peculiar features observed for MUSSES1604D can be perfectly explained by a specific explosion model which indicates that the explosion of the helium elements at the white dwarf surface will ultimately ignites the core explosion. This finding is the first robust evidence that one theoretical predicted stellar explosion scenario proposed in early 1980's, does truly exist in our universe.