View a vid-gif of how it explodes, here:
https://d2r55xnwy6nx47.cloudfront.net/uploads/2021/01/Supermodels_1620x912_Lede.mp4

By Thomas Lewton

In 1987, a giant star exploded right next to our own Milky Way galaxy. It was the brightest and closest supernova since the invention of the telescope some four centuries earlier, and just about every observatory turned to take a look. Perhaps most excitingly, specialized observatories buried deep underground captured shy subatomic particles called neutrinos streaming out of the blast.

These particles were first proposed as the driving force behind supernovas in 1966, which made their detection a source of comfort to theorists who had been trying to understand the inner workings of the explosions. Yet over the decades, astrophysicists had constantly bumped into what appeared to be a fatal flaw in their neutrino-powered models.

Neutrinos are famously aloof particles, and questions remained over exactly how neutrinos transfer their energy to the star’s ordinary matter under the extreme conditions of a collapsing star. Whenever theorists tried to model these intricate particle motions and interactions in computer simulations, the supernova’s shock wave would stall and fall back on itself. The failures “entrenched the idea that our leading theory for how supernovas explode maybe doesn’t work,” said Sean Couch, a computational astrophysicist at Michigan State University.

Of course, the specifics of what goes on deep inside a supernova as it explodes have always been mysterious. It’s a cauldron of extremes, a turbulent soup of transmuting matter, where particles and forces often ignored in our everyday world become critical. Compounding the problem, the explosive interior is largely hidden from view, shrouded by clouds of hot gas. Understanding the details of supernovas “has been a central unsolved problem in astrophysics,” said Adam Burrows, an astrophysicist at Princeton University who has studied supernovas for more than 35 years.

In recent years, however, theorists have been able to home in on the surprisingly complex mechanisms that make supernovas tick. Simulations that explode have become the norm, rather than the exception, Burrows wrote in Nature this month. Rival research groups’ computer codes are now agreeing on how supernova shock waves evolve, while simulations have advanced so far that even the effects of Einstein’s notoriously intricate general relativity are being included. The role of neutrinos is finally becoming understood.

“It’s a watershed moment,” said Couch. What they’re finding is that without turbulence, collapsing stars may never form supernovas at all.

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“Twenty years ago there were around 100 supernovae being discovered every year,” said Edo Berger, an astronomer at Harvard University. “Now we’re discovering 10,000 or 20,000 every year,” a rise driven by new telescopes that quickly and repeatedly scan the night sky. By contrast, in a year theorists carry out around 30 computer simulations. A single simulation, re-creating just a few minutes of core collapse, can take many months. “You check in every day and it’s only gone a millisecond,” said Couch. “It’s like watching molasses in the wintertime.”

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