Interesting choice of words:

Supernova captured in 'real time'

Astronomers say they have witnessed a stellar explosion - or supernova - unfolding in real time.

Supernovae occur when huge, mature stars effectively run out of fuel and collapse in on themselves.

Okay, they didn't say "live." It just so happens that this real-time event occured some 400 million years ago. But hey, on the galactic time scale anything less than a billion is pretty much a rounding error.

Anyhow, it's great that scientists are getting to see this as it is happening / as it happened hundreds of millions of years ago. We can learn a lot about what really takes place when a star blows. This might be good information to have should this ever take place in the more immediate stellar vicinity. On the other hand, if a nearby star ever blows, the damage will already be done by the time we know about it.

Just like in this instance, come to think of it.