Only around 15 events have been classified as a calcium-rich supernova (as of August 2017) – a combination of their intrinsic rarity and low luminosity make new discoveries and their subsequent study difficult.
[2][3] They share characteristics such as quickly rising and fading light curves that peak in luminosity between novae and supernovae, and spectra that are dominated by calcium 2–3 months after initial explosion.
[4] The exact nature of the stellar systems and their subsequent explosions that give rise to calcium-rich supernovae are unknown.
Searches for faint dwarf galaxies at their locations have ruled that they are exploding in very low density environments, unlike other supernova types.
A calcium-rich supernova event expels several tenths of a solar mass in material at thousands of kilometres per second and reaches a peak luminosity equal to around 100–200 million times that of the Sun.