As some regular readers know, one my recent projects is writing short science fiction stories based on good astronomy. After a long learning period, two of my stories have now been published in science fiction anthologies. The second one, which is about exploding stars and music, just had its rights returned to me, and so I am happy to put it up free on the web for everyone's enjoyment at:
After the short story, I have put a non-technical explanation of the science behind the fiction.
The accompanying photo is a NASA composite showing the remnant of Tycho's Supernova, a star seen to explode by the great astronomer Tycho Brahe in October 1604. In this image, blue and green colors shows what the remnant would look like if you had x-ray eyes, the yellow shows what it looks like in visible light, and the green shows the heat rays (infrared) coming from the object. Blended together, all the colors show where this remarkable "left-over"of a star that blew itself to bits is still glowing brightly more than 400 years later.
By the way, if you also want to read my first published science fiction story "A Cave in Arsia Mons" (about a surprising discovery on Mars), you can do so at:
