Synopsis

The supernova marks the spectacular end of a star's life. In its final moments, it can blaze with the intensity of a hundred billion suns, releasing energy equivalent to that which our own star would emit over ten billion years. Powerful streams of light and matter are ejected into the cosmos, sometimes triggering colossal gamma-ray bursts and generating intense X-ray radiation for millennia. Astronomers theorize that this cataclysmic event forges the fundamental elements from which planets, l