Type Ia supernovae: Toward the standard model?

In this short review I suggest that recent developments support the conjecture that Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are the complete disruptions of Chandrasekhar–mass carbon-oxygen white dwarfs in single–degenerate binary systems. The causes of the observational diversity of SNe Ia within the context of this standard model, and the implications of the model for young remnants of SNe Ia, are briefly discussed.