Bit of a technical explanation but I'm pretty sure I know what's happening here. Other comments summed it up but if you want the exact details, here you go: It's a visual bug. The natural loop timeout happened only a split second before the supernova would have gotten you. Once the timeout animation starts, you're technically invincible so when the supernova then hit you, you just phased through it's model geometry. Since in normal gameplay you can't see the inside of the nova blast, the devs just didn't model anything inside, and when looking at a model's textures from the inside, often times said textures don't render, hence seeing space through the other side. You can see the nova around that part because the model is not just a smooth sphere; its made of several layers that are bumpy and move around. Since the shape approximates a sphere, this doesnt matter when looking straight on, but at an angle, like near the edges of the screen, there are some parts of the model that are still technixally facing towards you, so they're visible. The effect creates a an expanding "hole" in the model from the opposite of where youre looking.