Table of Contents

Series Foreword ix
Introduction xi
1 Supernovae through the Ages 1
2 Supernovae in the Modern Era 19
3 Enlightened by Light 39
4 The Lives and Deaths of Stars 57
5 Supernovae, the Universe, and Us 81
6 Supernovae as Tools 99
7 Burning Questions 121
8 A Bright Future 143
Conclusions 167
Acknowledgments 171
Units and Elementary Particles 173
Glossary 175
Notes 183
Further Reading 203
Index 205

About the Author

Or Graur is Senior Lecturer in Astrophysics at the University of Portsmouth's Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation.

Reviews

"Supernovae — exploding stars — were first observed as far back as AD 185, by Chinese astronomers. In 1998, their use to measure distances to faraway galaxies enabled the discovery that the Universe’s expansion is accelerating — part of an astrophysics revolution. “I sincerely hope that in ten years, twenty at most, this book will be woefully out of date,” writes astrophysicist Or Graur in his accessible introduction. It includes a periodic table coloured to show chemical elements formed from supernovae, such as calcium and iron."
 —Nature