--- title: Watch the First-Ever Video of a Star Exploding description: NASA's Kepler space telescope captured the event canonical: https://time.com/4269247/star-exploding-video-gif/ author: Sarah Begley article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-03-23T16:18:32.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T16:09:01.393Z article:section: Science og:title: Watch the First-Ever Video of a Star Exploding og:description: NASA's Kepler space telescope captured the event og:url: https://time.com/4269247/star-exploding-video-gif/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte629ab37bd45e7fe/69888c32cd1bbac0bd6fff3f/kepler-exploding-star-nasa.gif?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: kepler-exploding-star-nasa og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch the First-Ever Video of a Star Exploding twitter:description: NASA's Kepler space telescope captured the event twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte629ab37bd45e7fe/69888c32cd1bbac0bd6fff3f/kepler-exploding-star-nasa.gif?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Watch the First-Ever Video of a Star Exploding by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Mar 23, 2016 4:18 PM UTC  NASA Ames/STScI/G. Bacon by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Mar 23, 2016 4:18 PM UTC For the first time, scientists have captured images of the big [shockwave](http://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/Kepler/caught-for-the-first-time-the-early-flash-of-an-exploding-star) of an exploding star. Data collected by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, and being analyzed now, revealed two supernovae in 2011\. While one did not reveal a “shock breakout,” possibly because it was masked by the gas that surrounds it, the other delivered a big one. The star, located 1.2 billion lightyears away and measuring about 500 time the size of our sun, had a shock breakout of only 20 minutes. So it’s lucky that the event was recorded by Kepler, which captured light every 30 minutes, NASA says. “In order to see something that happens on timescales of minutes, like a shock breakout, you want to have a camera continuously monitoring the sky,” [said](http://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/Kepler/caught-for-the-first-time-the-early-flash-of-an-exploding-star) Peter Garnavich, the scientist in charge of the team that found it. “You don’t know when a supernova is going to go off, and Kepler’s vigilance allowed us to be a witness as the explosion began.” Watch the First-Ever Video of a Star Exploding ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4269247/star-exploding-video-gif/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4269247/star-exploding-video-gif/"},"headline":"Watch the First-Ever Video of a Star Exploding","datePublished":"2016-03-23T16:18:32.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T16:09:01.393Z","description":"NASA's Kepler space telescope captured the event","url":"https://time.com/4269247/star-exploding-video-gif/","keywords":["Space"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte629ab37bd45e7fe/69888c32cd1bbac0bd6fff3f/kepler-exploding-star-nasa.gif?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sarah Begley","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte629ab37bd45e7fe/69888c32cd1bbac0bd6fff3f/kepler-exploding-star-nasa.gif?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"kepler-exploding-star-nasa","caption":"kepler-exploding-star-nasa","creditText":"NASA Ames/STScI/G. Bacon","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/space/","name":"Space"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4269247/star-exploding-video-gif/","name":"Watch the First-Ever Video of a Star Exploding"}}]}] ```