What types of stars explode as supernovas? Usually, we have to try to answer that question after the fact. Astronomers will study the composition and amount of gas expelled in the explosion to gain clues about the former star. But on rare occasions, astronomers are able to identify the specific star that exploded in pre-supernova images of the same region of the sky.

For the first time, astronomers have used images from the James Webb Space Telescope to identify a supernova progenitor that could not be seen by any other telescope: a red supergiant that was located in a nearby galaxy. The supergiant’s surroundings were surprisingly dusty – dusty enough to render it invisible to the Hubble Space Telescope.