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An international team of astronomers caught a massive star as it died in a titanic explosion deep in space.

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Every year, about two Earth masses of material flows to the disk of the young star V346 Normae from its surroundings, to eventually end up on the star causing a brightening. The hard-to-see phenomenon was captured by a Hungarian-led research group using ALMA, the largest astronomical telescope on Earth. The observation helps in the understanding of a key phenomenon: how circumstellar disks evolve and ultimately form planets.