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ESO
@eso.org

For the first time ever, astronomers have unveiled the shape of a supernova explosion just a day after detection, as the blast was breaking through the star’s surface. Achieved by our VLT, this feat will help us understand how massive stars die: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2520/ 🔭 🧪 ☄️

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John Harden
@giantspecks.bsky.social

Interesting achievement, but I feel like this artist's conception is confusing, and there's no commentary in the article about it. Is it accurate or fanciful? Does it resemble what was observed? The animation doesn't look "olive-shaped" at any point.

ESO
@eso.org

Indeed, we worked closely with the team to make sure that the illustration matches the shape inferred from the spectro-polarimetric observations. The "olive" term refers to the elongated shape of the explosion. It wasn't easy to come up with a better visual analogy ;-)