Astronomer have witnessed a Supernova the moment it exploded

Alicia Soderberg, a Princeton Astronomer, had logged some time on Nasa's Swift satellite to get some images of a previous Supernova, when by coincidence another Supernova exploded when she checked out the images. A Supernova can emit as much as energy during its short interval as the sun can over its entire lifespan. The reason this is such a big deal is that most Supernova we usually don't see a Supernova until it is hours or days old, but this time she caught the actual X-Ray blast from the explosion, which last only 5 minutes. This should really help to understand these enormous events better.

Head on over to Bad Astronomy for a much more detailed account.