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Abstract: The local burning front plays a crucial role in determining the global outcome of thermonuclear supernovae: success/failure, nucleosynthesis and ejecta morphology. Since the spatial scale of the flame front is much smaller than that of the WD system, even the state-of-the-art hydrodynamic simulations could miss its key aspects; insufficient resolution could in some cases lead to false success of explosion. We are currently pursuing the idea of theoretical descriptions and experimental observations to predict ignition and sustained propagation of detonation which are based on terrestrial burning physics and characteristic reaction scale known as the ‘cellular structure’. In the present talk, some key results will be provided demonstrating how effectively these theoretical/experimental frameworks serve as clues to the unresolved explosion mechanisms.