But he got America to spend billions upon billions of dollars on weapons, on underground shelters that he believed could save most people in a nuclear attack and on Star Wars.

ECONOMIST: Edward Teller

When nuclear fusion uses up a star's fuel, in the central high-pressure stellar core where fusion occurs, the star will collapse fairly violently.

CNN: Why gamma-ray burst shocked scientists

These new models of failed supernovae demonstrate how both normal brightness and extremely dim supernovae are generated from the same basic picture of a nuclear-burning white dwarf star, he added.

FORBES: When A Supernova ... Fizzles

Theory suggests that a certain type of giant, short-lived star can experience catastrophic collapse when the nuclear reactions at its core can no longer support its mass.

BBC: Telescope spies cataclysmic blast

Those white dwarf stars that find themselves near a "companion" star can draw material from their neighbour, building up to a critical mass and eventually sparking nuclear fusion again in a nova.

BBC: Gamma rays from nova explosion surprise astronomers

Acting alone, gravity would cause stars to collapse completely, but as long as energy is produced at their centers by nuclear fusion (the joining of atomic nuclei to form new elements, as in a hydrogen bomb), the star is heated and puffed up.

CNN: Why gamma-ray burst shocked scientists