20 February 2003 Supernovae: Spectacle or Disaster? A simplified definition of a supernova is "a rare celestial phenomenon involving the explosion of most of the material in a star, resulting in an extremely bright, short- ... their lives in this spectacular light show. There are two different types of this fascinating phenomenon, simply classified as Type I and Type II. Type I occurs in binary stars, or stars that are close together and orbit around each other. The smaller of the two, called a white dwarf, draws mass form the larger star ... from the remnants of supernovae. It was named the L...

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