A dying red supergiant star, 10 times more massive than our sun, has collapsed—and for the first time ever, Earth observatories have imaged a Type II supernova explosion in real time. Astronomers at Hawaii’s Keck Observatory in the summer of 2020 were conducting the Young Supernova Experiment (YSE) transient survey when a bright light emanating from a red supergiant caught their attention. Closer inspection yielded the final 130-day chapter of a star’s cataclysmic demise. Consisting of two enormous 10-meter telescopes, Keck Observatory with its Pan-STARRS telescope on Haleakalā, Maui, (the other platform being W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaii Island,) caught sight of a “huge amount of light radiating from the red supergiant,” the observatory stated. Just months later, in the fall of 2020, a supernova would unfold right before their very lenses. Based on this real time celestial spectacle, Keck Observatory enlisted a digital artist to render the star’s destruction: (Courtesy …