For the first time ever, astronomers have watched a massive star die from start to finish, uncovering a new mechanism for how this kind of violent event can occur in unexpected ways and explode into a brilliant supernova.

Monitoring started in March when China’s Einstein Probe space telescope detected an outburst. The flash was specifically caused by a high-pressure shock wave triggered by a core-collapse explosion breaking through the degrading stellar crust.

The rare discovery is called a shock breakout as it is thought to occur in every supernova but is vanishing quickly like vapor.

This marks one of the first discoveries since 2008 to be observed as researchers........

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