This might be helpful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova#Core_collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova#Core_collapse I'm not an expert, but an an

This might be helpful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova#Core_collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova#Core_collapse I'm not an expert, but an analogy here could perhaps be if you drop a cup of water on the floor (assuming it doesn't break) some of that water is going to rebound on itself/the cup, and will splash upwards. That would be gravitational potential energy being converted to kinetic energy, causing material to be ejected. With stars, there is a TON of gravitational potential energy, and so when it's converted to kinetic energy during a collapse, you "explode" the lighter weight outer layers of the star away from the more dense core. Some of the stars core remains, and can become either a neutron star or a black hole.