supernova

From super- (prefix meaning ‘exceptionally large in quantity, excessive; superior in potency or power’) + nova (“sudden brightening of a previously inconspicuous star”), coined by the German astronomer Walter Baade (1893–1960) and the Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky (1898–1974) who introduced the term in an astrophysics course and in seminars at the California Institute of Technology in 1931, although it was the Swedish astronomer Knut Lundmark (1889–1958) who first used the word in print in a paper dated 31 December 1932 and published in 1933: see the quotation.