  Stellar evolution theory predicts multiple pathways to the explosive deaths
of stars as supernovae. Locating and characterizing the progenitors of
well-studied supernovae is important to constrain the theory, and to justify
and design future surveys to improve on progenitor detections. Here we report
the serendipitous pre-explosion imaging, by the {\it Hubble Space Telescope},
of SN2023ixf, one of the nearest extragalactic supernovae ever discovered, in
the galaxy M101. The extremely red color and absolute magnitude
M(F814W)=-5.11(+0.65/-0.47)mag suggest that the progenitor was a red
supergiant. Comparison with stellar evolutionary isochrones suggests it is
within the relatively low initial mass range of ~8-10Msun and that there is
likely a lot of dust present at the supernova site.
