A journey through cosmic life and death

The aurora, or Northern and Southern Lights, is a stunning natural light show powered by magnetism, plasma, and the Earth’s atmosphere. Charged particles from the Sun travel to Earth, colliding with the atmosphere and releasing energy that paints the sky in greens, reds, and purples. Join us to explore how these particles move, why auroras appear at the poles, their shapes and colors, and how we study them. Discover how the Sun’s energy brings the night sky to life in this spectacular display!

When stars much bigger than our Sun can no longer sustain their own weight through nuclear fusion reactions, they inevitably collapse under the action of the force of gravity. This process can cause bright "supernova" explosions that outshine the galaxy where they take place and leave behind a new "compact object", such as a black hole or a neutron star. I will guide you through a journey across the few seconds that lead to these cataclysmic cosmic events, showing how we can study them using not only observations, but also numerical simulations and even laboratory experiments!