Reading through the 1987A coverage from that first year is like tailing a team of detectives as they pull together disparate details to solve a crime. The first observers thought the exploded star was Sanduleak -69° 202, but by March 7, astronomers were considering a companion star as the culprit. By May, general agreement settled back on Sanduleak. It was also unclear, at first, whether the event was a type 2 supernova or the less common type 1a — the explosion of a matter-thieving white dwarf. Neutrinos emitted from the supernova and detected on Earth presented their own puzzles: Why was there a five-hour time difference between detections at Mount Blanc in Europe and at the Kamiokande detector in Japan? And could the flight time of 1987A’s neutrinos reveal whether the particles have mass? (Today we know they do.) Together those early stories are a study in how science progresses. And our reporters were there, doggedly following every lead.