Word of the Day - Supernova

supernova

Pronunciation: /ˌsuːpəˈnəʊvə/
noun
Astronomy
A star that suddenly increases greatly in brightness because of a catastrophic explosion that ejects most of its mass.

Origin: late 19th century: from Latin, feminine of novus ‘new’ (because such stars were thought to be newly formed).

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It always made Joe mad when people illustrated stars, especially supernovas with rays surrounding them. He knew the rays were artefacts of poor telescope optics and having to look at stars through the Earth's atmosphere.

[The WotD forum expectation of a "new" word every day puts the kibosh on using ODO's nova in today's post. As a result, we went from "new" to "supernew". I hope you are satisfied. A challenge: Can you tell whether the sentences in the illustration end in periods?]