Astronomers have captured one of the rarest events in the universe—the very first moments of a massive star exploding. The signal, named EP260321a, immediately caught astronomers’ attention because it appeared to be the first sign of a supernova. Two independent international research teams then launched an intensive observing campaign using space telescopes and powerful observatories on the ground. The researchers also confirmed that the explosion was a broad-lined Type Ic supernova, a powerful class of stellar explosions. By combining all these observations, they were able to reconstruct the star’s final years in remarkable detail.