A supernova is a transient astronomical event that occurs during the last stellar evolutionary stages of a massive star's life, whose dramatic and catastrophic destruction is marked by one final titanic explosion. This explosion can happen in one of many ways, but in all of them a significant proportion of the matter in the star is blown away into the surrounding space at extremely high velocities (up to 10% of the speed of light). Unless there is perfect spherical symmetry in these explosions (i.e., unless matter is spewed out evenly in all directions), there will be gravitational radiation from the explosion. This is because gravitational waves are generated by a changing quadrupole moment, which can happen only when there is asymmetrical movement of masses. Since the exact mechanism by which supernovae take place is not fully understood, it is not easy to model the gravitational radiation emitted by them.