Blog post: swansont: It's a Big %#^&ing Deal

Astronomers are used to things that change slowly, over millions or billions of years, so when something goes BANG in the sky, we tend to kind of lose it. It’s certainly partially just the novelty, but it’s also because events like this give us a chance – and a fleeting one at that – to watch some of the most energetic and revealing processes in the Universe as they happen.