A 2024 supernova’s light dips reveal a newborn magnetar’s gravity warping spacetime, confirming its role in powering superluminous explosions.

A superluminous supernova, SN 2024afav, observed in 2024, shows a unique light pattern with increasingly frequent dips, providing the first direct evidence that a newborn magnetar powers such explosions. The pattern, caused by Lense–Thirring precession—where the magnetar’s intense gravity warps spacetime and makes a surrounding accretion disk wobble—confirms that magnetars, rapidly spinning, highly magnetized neutron stars, can sustain extreme brightness by energizing ejected material. This discovery resolves a long-standing mystery and marks the first time general relativity has been key to explaining supernova mechanics.