Explosions seem messy, the ultimate destroyers of order. What about the biggest explosions of all, the ones that are responsible for the creation of every single atom in our bodies?

This picture shows what happens if you focus a laser with the same bursting energy as the entire continuous electricity supply of the USA on a pinhead sized representation of the elements within a star, in order to simulate a supernova.

Amazingly, the model reveals fleeting, scale free structure reminiscent of a fractal.