For decades, astronomers have searched the skies for a missing population of doomed stars — the massive red supergiants that theory predicts should end their lives in powerful stellar explosions, but somehow rarely seem to. Now, thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the mystery may finally be clearing up, quite literally.
In a new study, a team of astronomers report that they have captured the most detailed glimpse yet of a red supergiant before it exploded. Using JWST's powerful infrared vision, the researchers identified the star that produced a supernova, marking the first time that the powerful space telescope has detected a supernova progenitor.
