SPACE & PHYSICS
Astronomers watch a star explode in real time
WORDS BRANDON SPECKTOR
An artist’s illustration of a red supergiant
© Getty / NASA;JPL;SSI
Astronomers watched a giant star blow up in a fiery supernova for the first time ever, and the spectacle was even more explosive than researchers anticipated. Scientists began watching the doomed star, a red supergiant now designated SN 2020tlf, located about 120 million light years from Earth, more than 100 days before its final violent collapse.