If the core of a massive star provides this rest mass energy, it can generate several hundred times the energy of a thermonuclear supernova. The core collapse of a massive star is associated in current theory will all but one type of supernova.
ScienceDaily (Dec. 2, 2010) - A team of physicists from the University of Toronto and Rutgers University has mimicked a supernova -- an explosion of a star -- in miniature.
It was supposed to be the first great scientific discovery of the 21st Century - or so many researchers thought when they rushed down to the bookmakers to place bets at what were deemed at the time to be ludicrously generous odds.
The physicists believed that they were close to making the first direct detection of gravitational waves, the ripples in space-time generated by supernovas and coalescing neutron stars.