A pair of incredible images taken at the very moment two different stars exploded are also an accurate representation of how our feeble minds are being melted at the awesome but terrifying cosmic forces on display. The detonation arises once the stripped material — primarily hydrogen — accumulates on the white dwarf’s surface and reaches critical mass. Novas, in other words, are naturally occurring hydrogen bombs, releasing in mere moments the energy our star emits in roughly 100,000 years. The other imaged nova, V1405 Cassiopeiae, seemed to unfold in spectacular slow motion, taking more than fifty days before finally ejecting all of its exploded material. Remarkably, when this envelope finally dispersed, the ejection produced its own blast of gamma rays that NASA’s Fermi was able to observe.