The Tiny Supernovas Inside an EUV Machine: The Same Math that Describes Exploding Stars is Keeping Moore's Law Going

Supernova explosions, the catastrophic self-destruction of certain types of worn-out stars, are intimately tied to life on Earth because they are the birthplaces of heavy elements across the universe. Most of the iron in our blood and the sulfur in our amino acids originated in stars that detonated billions of years ago. But we have encountered another, quite surprising connection between supernovas and the human world—specifically, a connection to the technology needed to make computer chips for the latest smartphones and other electronic devices.