Lifeboat Foundation

With the help of the James Webb Space Telescope, scientists have figured out a mystery at the heart of a supernova that’s been decades in the making.

As Space.com reports, Supernova 1987A, so named for the year it was discovered here on Earth, exploded so brightly after its death that for more than 30 years, scientists weren’t sure whether it was going to form a mega-dense and compact neutron star or a black hole.

Now, an international team of scientists has begun unraveling the mystery of that long-ago explosion with the discovery of its associated neutron star, as imaged by the JWST and described in their new paper published in the journal Science.