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He was also a visual artist and art collector, according to the American Visionary Art Museum, ultimately amassing hundreds of works including Pop Art prints by Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and others.

Al Freeman makes satirical, Claes Oldenburg-style sculptures of beer cans, electrical cords and other lowly objects.

Claes Fransson of Stockholm University, and the lead author on this study, explained: "From theoretical models of SN 1987A, the 10-second burst of neutrinos observed just before the supernova implied that a neutron star or black hole was formed in the explosion. But we have not observed any compelling signature of such a newborn object from any supernova explosion. With this observatory, we have now found direct evidence for emission triggered by the newborn compact object, most likely a neutron star."

Prof Claes Fransson, of Stockholm University in Sweden, who led the study, said this was the first time anyone had been able to probe the centre of the supernova and what was created there.

“Besides the black hole, these are the most exotic objects we have in the universe,” said lead author Claes Fransson, an astrophysicist at Stockholm University in Sweden.