Radioactive elements in Cassiopeia A suggest a neutrino-driven explosion

Stars exploding as supernovae are the main sources of heavy chemical elements in the Universe. In particular, radioactive atomic nuclei are synthesized in the hot, innermost regions during the explosion and can thus serve as probes of the unobservable physical processes that initiate the blast. Using elaborate computer simulations, a team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPA) and RIKEN in Japan were able to explain the recently measured spatial distributions of radi...