An international team of astronomers has seen the death throes of a star cocooned inside a dense shell of gas and dust, which ended in a violent explosion unlike a typical supernova.

“We’ve discovered yet another way that stars die and distribute material back into space,” said , including Dr. Brad Tucker from The Australian National University’s Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

When the massive amount of energy from the blast slammed into the shell, most of the kinetic energy was immediately converted to light. It had a few near-death experiences before it ultimately died.

The final explosion lasted for only a few days — 10 times faster than a typical supernova.

The new study is published in Nature Astronomy