When a star like our Sun burns out, it doesn’t fade quietly. Instead, it has a colorful “last hurrah.” It puffs off glowing clouds of gas. Those are called a planetary nebula.
Driven by the spinning and wobbling star, the gases create shapes that look like a carnival spin-art game. Stars ten times bigger than our Sun go out with a bang. The star’s nuclear furnace suddenly shuts down, and it collapses. The collapse is so violent that the star explodes with energy equal to blowing up a hundred thousand trillion trillion of the biggest nuclear bombs at once! This is called a supernova.
