The image above shows Supernova 2016gkg , which is indicated by red bars, in the galaxy NGC 613 roughly 40 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Sculptor.

(C. Kilpatrick, UC Santa Cruz, and Carnegie Institution for Science, Las Campanas Observatory, Chile)

At a Glance

An amateur astronomer captured lucky snapshots of a massive star explosion.The images are the first view of the initial burst of light from such a phenomenon.Researchers say they photos provide insight about the nature of the star itself and its eruption.

An amateur astronomer in Argentina captured the first-ever view of the initial light burst from a massive star explosion.

Victor Buso was testing out a new camera for his telescope on Sept. 20, 2016when he caught images of Buso and an international team of researchers reported in a recent study. His images showed what happens in the first hour after light from the eruption begins to shine forth.

Shock breakouts occur when the explosion from the star's core creates a supersonic wave of pressure that heats up gas , according to a release on the findings. The surface then reaches high temperatures, which causes it to release light and brighten quickly.

“It is difficult to establish the properties of massive stars that explode as supernovae,” wrote the researchers. “The electromagnetic emission during the first minutes to hours after the emergence of the shock from the stellar surface conveys important information about the final evolution and structure of the exploding star.”

Buso’s lens caught multiple short-exposure images of NGC 613, a spiral galaxy some 80 million light-years away from Earth in the Sculptor constellation, according to the study.

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The scientists dubbed the explosion SN 2016gkg and determined it was a Type IIb supernova, which occurs when a massive star that has lost most of its hydrogen erupts. They estimateits initial mass was about 20 times that of the sun, but it lost a majority of its mass before exploding and slimmed down to roughly 4 times the sun's mass.

Before Buso’s lucky snapshots, the “first optical light” from a supernova had not been captured, particularly one that isn’t associated with the burst of a gamma ray or X-ray, the release stated.

According to NASA, . Paired with the fact that stars seemingly explode at random, the phenomenon has been hard for researchers and photographersto catch.

Institute of Astrophysics La Plata astronomer Melina Bersten estimates the odds of capturing the phenomenon are one in 10 million, or possibly even one in 100 million, according to the release.

“Professional astronomers have long been searching for such an event,” University of California, Berkeley astronomer Alex Filippenko said in the release. “Observations of stars in the first moments they begin exploding provide information that cannot be directly obtained in any other way.”

“It’s like winning the cosmic lottery,” he added.

The scientists plan to studySN 2016gkg in the coming months to find out more about the star itself and the nature of its explosion.