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magnetorotational supernova in 3D

A magnetorotational supernova in 3D. When a spinning magnetized star collapses, its magnetic field lines get wound up tightly about the star's spin axis, sort of like a tight coil or a phone cord. Such magnetic fields are unstable to a "kink" instability, which is amplified, and a small microscopic deviation from symmetry will become macroscopic and globally change what is happening in the supernova. This instabilty fundamentally requires 3D simulations to see. This image is a volume rendering of the specific entropy distribution. Red and yellow regions indicate high entropy ("high disorder", "high temperature", "low density"). The flow structure is fundamentally aspherical. Two large-scale polar lobes have formed that slowly move outward, but are not yet running away in an explosion. This snapshot is from about 180 milliseconds after the proto-neutron star is made.