In a monumental achievement for astronomy, scientists have, for the first time, observed a star explode in real time. The star in question, a red supergiant named SN 2020tlf, is located approximately 120 million light-years away. A team of researchers began studying the star more than 100 days before its violent collapse, using data from the University of Hawaii’s Pan-STARRS1 telescope and the W. M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea.