The explosion of a star results in the release of energy, gases, metals and minerals, which are the constituent particles of universe. Till this week, the exact process by which the giant balls of fire explode was something like a mystery.

Caltech and NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuStar) started to unravel the mystery.

NuStar's orbiting telescopes were used by the scientists to study objects. They discovered that a short while before the explosion, stars actually slosh around and then finally burst into the beautiful cosmic mess, also termed as a supernova.

The conclusion was drawn by studying Cassiopeia A (Cas A), a supernova. It was produced when a star with over eight times the mass of our own sun exploded approximately 11,000 years ago.

Fiona Harrison, the principal investigator of NuStar at Caltech, said stars are spherical balls of gas and the mystery is when they end their lives and explode. It would appear like a uniform ball expanding out with great power.

He added, "Our new results show how the explosion's heart, or engine, is distorted, possibly because the inner regions literally slosh around before detonating".

Optical, infrared, and X-ray telescopes were used by astronomers for years to study Cas A. But, NuStar's high-energy X-ray detectors helped them to observe these radioactive elements in the supernova for the very first time.

Earlier, computer simulations of supernova blasts revealed the explosion stalling after the main shock wave die out without enough force to split the star apart.

The NuStar telescopes were capable of observing titanium-44, a radioactive element found at the heart of the exploding star, for the first time.

The distribution manner of the element helped scientists believe the above fact, which the NuStar telescopes observed. Brian Grefenstette of Caltech, the lead author of a paper published Thursday in the journal Nature, says that with NuStar, they have got a new forensic tool that could prove helpful for them in gaining insight into the explosion.