Question: why is supernova so important?

Heather Campbell answered on 11 Nov 2014:

Supernovae create all the heaviest elements in the Universe.
Hydrogen and Helium were created in the Big bang and then stars create many slightly heavier elements, by burning hydrogen in their cores. But the heaviest ones you only get through the huge amount of pressure in a supernovae explosion, these include such things a gold, cobault and lead, life would be very different with out these elements!

Also, there is a special type -called “Type Ia Supernovae” which are all about the same brightness. We can use them like light bulbs, if you know the brightness of two light bulbs and they are at different distances you can use that to work out which is further away. We can use the Type Ia Supernovae like this to measure distances in the universe, we call the standard candles. And using this we can use them to try to work out how much mysterious Dark Energy is in the Universe pushing everything apart, in an accelerate expansion.