Table of Contents

Foreword; the why and wherefore of this book; a new sighting; life, nuclear fusion, and neutrinos; leading players in nature's big and little bangs; the search for expiring protons; the right method for the wrong reason; the burst of neutrinos for SN 1987A; why all the excitement; birth evolution and decline; doom and the aftermath; two important consequences of supernovae; nutron stars, the Hubble space telescope and black holes; conclusion; appendix 1 - powers of ten notation; appendix 2 - units of energy; appendix 3 - the periodic table of chemical elements.