Contents:

Introduction  Life  Remanents

Introduction:
One of the most energetic explosive events known is a supernova. These occur at the end of a star's lifetime, when its nuclear fuel is exhausted and it is no longer supported by the release of nuclear energy. If the star is particularly massive, then its core will collapse and in so doing will release a huge amount of energy. This will cause a blast wave that ejects the star's envelope into interstellar space. The result of the collapse may be, in some cases, a rapidly rotating neutron star that can be observed many years later as a radio pulsar.

Life:
Supernovae are responsible for spreading most of the matter in the Universe. The cores of stars are responsible for maintaining the Proton-proton reaction, which is responsible for creating all the elements in the Universe other then hydrogen and some helium. When a supernova explodes it sends all of the stars contents, that were created in its core. These elements that are blasted from the stars eventually combine, and mix, and do things that stellar matter do. In some cases these new elements combine to form new stars, planets, and at least in our case, Life.
 
Remanents:
While many supernovae have been seen in nearby galaxies, they are relatively rare events in our own galaxy. The explosion is so powerful that the amount of energy release is greater then that of all the stars in an entire galaxy. The last to be seen was Kepler's star in 1604. This remnant has been studied by many X-ray astronomy satellites. There are many remnants of Supernovae explosions in our galaxy, that are seen as X-ray shell like structures caused by the shock wave propagating out into the interstellar medium. Another famous remnant is the Crab Nebula which exploded in 1054. In this case a pulsar is seen which rotates 30 times a second and emits a rotating beam of X-rays. Another dramatic supernova remnant is the Cygnus Loop.