[longshadow]

.... the Very Long Baseline Array, which combines the efforts of 10 antennas spread from Hawaii to the Virgin Islands to gain greater sensitivity. [emphasis added]

This is somewhat misleading; the fact that the 10 antennae are spread out from the Virgin Islands to Hawaii contributes nothing to the sensitivity of the array; the same 10 antennae parked next to each other would have the same sensitivity. What spreading them out does (which is why it is called the Very Long Baseline Array) is it increases the effective resolution of the array, far greater than can be obtained by a single dish of equivalent apeture.

This means the VLBA can resolve more detail than a single dish of equivalent apeture, but cannnot detect signals that are any weaker than what the equivalent single dish would detect.

[PatrickHenry]

The supernovae, forged at the intersection of two merging galaxies, help confirm a long-held theoretical expectation that galaxy collisions generate episodes of intense star birth and rapid death. Astronomers call these merging objects starbirth galaxies, and they are thought to be a primary driving force of cosmic evolution.

Very much like the wonderously speculative opening chapter of "Triplanetary," E.E. "Doc" Smith's famous space opera.