Space is big! Science is cool! Let’s talk about it. WHAT IS A SUPERNOVA? Stars are kind of like people. They are born, live their entire lives, and then die. Except, that’s an oversimplification. Stars are giants. But they’re also giant chemical reactions. Just like a fire, though, stars will eventually burn through their fuel supply. The difference is that when a fire exhausts its fuel, it doesn’t blow up into something multiple of its original size, nor does it collapse back on itself to form super-dense matter. When a star “burns out,” many things can happen. But the main one is that the forces that balance out this giant object fall into an imbalance. Here’s how NASA explains it: “Massive stars burn huge amounts of nuclear fuel at their cores or centers. This produces tons of energy, so the center gets very hot. Heat generates pressure, and the pressure created by a star’s nuclear burning also keeps that star from collapsing. A star is in the balance between two opposite forces. Th...