An international collaboration of eighteen researchers, led by Keiichi Maeda (the Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe; IPMU), Koji Kawabata (Hiroshima University), Ken’ichi Nomoto (IPMU), Masaomi Tanaka (School of Science, U. Tokyo), has uncovered shape of core-collapse supernovae. They used the Subaru Telescope to discover that “supernovae are NOT round” but rather pencil-like. The result sheds light on actively debated unsolved topics in astrophysics: the explosion mechanisms of supernovae and gamma-ray bursts.