This is V838Mon. On January 10, 2002 this star suddenly rose from obscurity to briefly become over 600,000 times brighter than our sun. Stars are, of course, suns and when this one exploded it is believed to have swallowed all the planets that spent their time orbiting it.

It's from studying supernovas like this one ( although V838Mon is technically a supergiant) that scientists have determined that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. The light from the explosion continues to ripple outward illuminating even more and more remote regions. Not that I exactly understand what that means cosmologically, but there is some ancient part of me that gets it---that KNOWS that the same thing happens inside me, on a cellular level and a consciousness level. I think it must be the equivalent of an epiphany or deep emotional shock. And with that instantaneous new awareness everything we are and know dies and gets reborn as something else.