"These are the first three-dimensional models linking the beginning of the explosion to the supernova structure we see hours later," said study co-author Hans-Thomas Janka, an astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Garching, Germany.

The new simulations also give the best peek yet at the prime suspect in the mystery of what kills big stars from the inside out: a torrential spasm of ghostly subatomic particles called neutrinos.