Question: How many explosions have you seen?

Ry Cutter answered on 26 Jun 2020:

Ohhhh! I have personally seen about 50 explosions. Most of them are what we call type 1a supernovae. This is when a white dwarf sucks up so much matter from another star, that it gets too heavy and reaches thermonuclear runaway… an explosion.
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One of a more destructive explosions I’ve seen is called a type 2B supernova. These are a rare kind of type2 supernovae. So! A type 2 supernova is also called a core-collapse supernova. This is when a really heavy star (over 8 times heavier than our sun) runs out of fuel. Because it has no fuel to fight gravity, it collapses, really fast. This makes the everything incredibly hot, even subatomic particles start behaving weird. This makes the massive explosion, leaving behind either a neutron star or black hole. What makes a 2B rare is that this explosion happens, but some of the material just isn’t there! This is either because it was pushed away just before the star collapsed, or was swept away by a companion star.
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The last type (which I sort of helped to find), is called a kilonova. This is the result of two merging neutron stars. These are so rare, we’ve only found one for sure! The physics here is so extreme that we’re able to learn things about quantum mechanics, and test general relativity! Because we’ve only found one, we don’t really know much about them. They have a lot to teach us 😀
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Great Question,
Ry