the.com/supernova remnant
A dead star's way of redecorating the galaxy with its own guts.
means The expanding cloud of gas and dust blasted outward when a massive star explodes, which goes on heating, glowing, and seeding space with heavy elements for thousands of years.
from A straightforward modern compound: 'nova' is Latin for 'new,' borrowed by early astronomers who saw a sudden bright 'new star' appear in the sky; 'super-' was tacked on in the 20th century once scientists realized some of these flare-ups were vastly more violent than ordinary novae, representing total stellar death rather than a surface flare. 'Remnant,' simply 'what remains,' was added by astronomers to name the leftover debris cloud now studied in its own right, long after the initial flash fades.
- expansion speed
- shockwaves can travel at thousands of km per second
- element factory
- forges and scatters calcium, iron, and gold
- crab nebula
- remnant of a supernova witnessed by Chinese astronomers in 1054
- cosmic recycling
- debris seeds new stars, planets, and eventually you