“Two teams of scientists utilized several NSF NOIRLab facilities to observe the event and monitor its evolving light profile,” NOIRLab explains. In the past two decades, scientists have confidently identified an X-ray shock breakout just one other time. The initial shock breakout was the faintest ever associated with an Ic-BL supernova, although the explosion itself was not weak. “One possibility is that the jet was ‘choked,’ either by the surface of the star or by circumstellar material surrounding the star.” By combining observations from Einstein Probe, NSF NOIRLab facilities, and partner observatories around the world, researchers were able to reconstruct a rare explosion in unprecedented detail,” NSF concludes.