Studded with myriads of immutable points, the celestial vault is a picture of peace and harmony. Really? No. New stars kindle their fires from time to time – they were therefore called novae, then supernovae (pronounced nové). In fact, they have not just been born, but have just died in a cataclysmic grand finale.
“There are two kinds of supernovae: medium-sized double stars, like our Sun, that explode like a thermonuclear bomb at the end of their lives and leave nothing behind except those beacons that mapped the universe. And the very massive stars whose core is collapsing in on itself, while expelling its envelope into space. A pulsar, a neutron star of extraordinary density, is all that remains as ash of…
