When degenerative dwarfs collide

(that's white dwarfs to you and me)

Degenerative dwarfs used as standard candles to gauge the inflation of the cosmos? This might sound like a bizarre case of exploitation from the pages of the casebook of the Mad Hatter’s lawyer (12b Looking Glass Lane, Wonderland) but, in reality, scientists have been using this technique for years to measure the expansion of the universe.

The dwarfs in question are the expired remnants of dead stars – that were once like our Sun – called white dwarfs (they are also called degenerative dwarfs in reference to the properties their electrons possess) and they are involved in a type of stellar explosion