Observations of Superluminous Supernovae and their Host Galaxies

Superluminous supernovae (SLSNe) were discovered during the last decade by wide-field surveys. Despite their importance for stellar evolution and mass loss, especially at low metallicities, and their utility as high-redshift probes and possible distance indicators, their nature remains poorly understood. I present here new exciting observations of SLSNe and their host galaxies that offer new clues in the hunt for their progenitors and explosion mechanism. These include constraints on the ages and the metallicities at the SN environments, double peaks revealed by early observations, the presence of H in nebular spectra, and the first evidence on the explosion geometry, through polarimetry.