This Argonne supercomputer visualisation shows the mechanism behind the violent death of a short-lived, massive star.



The image shows energy values in the core of the supernova.



Different colours and transparencies are assigned to different values of entropy.



By selectively adjusting the colour and transparency, the scientists can peel away the outer layers and see what is happening in the interior of the star.



(Image: Hongfeng Yu)

A snapshot of a type Ia supernova taken very shortly after the moment of detonation.



The energy released during the blast is equivalent to 1027 hydrogen bombs, each equivalent to 10 megatons of TNT.



This tremendous energy release makes Type Ia supernovae some of the most luminous explosions in the universe, and therefore useful as distance indicators for cosmology.



(Image: DOE NNSA ASC / Alliance Flash Center)

Visualisation of an exploding supernova - continued from the previous picture.



The explosion itself is over in less than 5 seconds, but the supercomputer uses more than 160,000 processors, and expends 22 million computational hours, simulating it.



(Image: Argonne National Laboratory) Advertisement

Three visualisations of nuclear combustion in a supernova.



The leftmost frame depicts the nuclear flame surface itself, while the other frames represent the combustion's velocity and enstrophy.



These latter two properties dictate how the combustion flows through the system.



(Image: Argonne National Laboratory)

A snapshot of a three-dimensional simulation of a Type Ia supernova.



This image was taken shortly after the nuclear flame bubble that initiated the event was ignited, slightly off-centre from the progenitor white dwarf star (shown here as a light blue surface).



Buoyancy forces drive the bubble (shown in yellow and red) rapidly to the surface of the white dwarf.



(Image: DOE NNSA ASC / Alliance Flash Center)