Death of a star in 3 dimensions
Massive stars end their lives in gigantic explosions, so called supernovae, and can become - for a short time - brighter than a whole galaxy, which is made up of billions of stars. Although supernovae have been studied theoretically by computer models for several decades, the physical processes happening during these blasts are so complex that until now astrophysicists could only simulate parts of the process and so far only in one or two dimensions. Researches at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching have now carried out the first fully three-dimensional computer simulations of a core collapse supernova over a timescale of hours after the initiation of the blast. They thus could answer the question of how initial asymmetries, which emerge deep in the dense core during the very early stages of the explosion, fold themselves into inhomogeneities observable during the supernova blast...