SUPERNOVAS REVEALED IN THREE DIMENTION: The universe's biggest blasts take on a new dimension

Astronomers are at nature’s whim. They study what they can see on the silk screen of the night sky, and must interpret that as a three-dimensional universe. Stars that appear next to each other on the sky’s visual plane could actually be hundreds of light-years apart along that hidden third dimension, depth. Astronomers have done their best to compensate, but sometimes they don’t succeed. It’s been a particular challenge in understanding a specific kind of stellar explosion.