Supernova shock breakout

3D ModelNoAI

Artist’s impression of the last moments of life of a massive star (with mass > 8 times the mass of our Sun). At the end of its life cycle, the star has consumed much of the material necessary to produce energy in its interior. Without this energy, the star’s core is no longer able to support the overlying stellar layers and collapses under their weight. The core-collapse leads to complex physical processes within the star that produce a large amount of neutrinos, some of which escape the star and radiate into the surrounding space. They are the first messangers of a supernova and precede the explosion by a few hours. The huge amount of energy produced by the core-collapse triggers a shock which propagates outward through the stellar layers. In a short time the shock reaches the surface of the star: a supernova shines in the sky. The scene shows the instant in time when the shock is about to pass the star’s surface. The escaped neutrinos are represented by luminescent rays that radiate away from the star.