Researchers from the University of Chicago are about to run the most complex simulation of a supernova ever attempted. The simulation will use 2.7 million hours of supercomputing time from the U.S. Department of Energy; computers which are used to simulate nuclear weapon explosions. Scientists think that a supernova explodes inside the core of a white dwarf star, and then expands towards the surface like an inflating balloon, but the exact stages are still unknown. The results from the simulation should be ready by summer.