ENG: Astronomers captured an exceptionally rare view of a star exploding almost from the moment the event began. On March 21, 2026, the Einstein Probe detected a brief pulse of soft X-rays from a galaxy about 500 million light-years away. The signal, known as EP260321a, was identified as a “shock breakout,” the first flash produced when the shock wave from a collapsing star reaches its surface and releases radiation into space. Less than an hour later, telescopes on Earth observed the supernova, named SN 2026gzf, rapidly becoming brighter.
