It seems a fusion shield could survive a supernova explosion.

“That’s what makes this white dwarf unique — it did undergo nuclear burning, but stopped before it got to iron,” Gänsicke told Space.com.

“This star is unique because it has all the key features of a white dwarf but it has this very high velocity and unusual abundances that make no sense when combined with its low mass,” Boris Gänsicke, physics professor at the University of Warwick, UK, and lead author of a paper about the research published the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, said in a statement.

“It would have been a type of supernova, but of a kind that that we haven’t seen before,” he added.