Kyoto, Japan -- Explosions in the sky and explosions on land are literally worlds apart. A supernova and a land mine explosion don't seem like they would have much in common. But at the fine level, their mechanisms are not so different: the so-called cell structure appears at the smallest scale, which provides the most important criterion in predicting the success or failure of terrestrial detonation in a land-mine explosion.

Terrestrial and astrophysical detonations are basically dictated by the same theories for their time-averaged characteristics. Terrestrial cell-based theories, however -- such as those that explain a land mine explosion -- have not yet been applied as criteria for astrophysical detonation.

Motivated by the potential of this theoretical analogy, an interdisciplinary research team of engineers and astrophysicists at Kyoto University recently joined together to better understand how type Ia supernovae explode.

Within the next decade, space agencies plan to bring samples of rock from Mars to Earth for study. Of concern is the possibility these samples contain life, which could have unforeseen consequences. Therefore, researchers in this field strive to create methods to detect life. For the first time, researchers, including those from the University of Tokyo and NASA, successfully demonstrated a method to detect life in ancient rocks analogous to those found on Mars.