As predators, snakes are missing a few key attributes. They have no legs to chase down their prey, no paws to knock down quarry, and no claws to hold their victims. But none of these deficiencies matters much, because evolution has handed snakes the ultimate weapon: venom. With it, the several hundred types of venomous snakes can kill or debilitate before their victims escape.

Enormous supernova explosions, gamma-ray bursts from distant galaxies, the violent birth of stars, and the incredible consequences of collisions between galaxies or black holes: These are some of the most extreme and mysterious events in the universe, yet our largest telescopes and satellites glimpse only their dim afterglow.

Thats why astronomers use the worlds largest supercomputers to transform theories and formulas into animated 3-D simulations of explosions, collapses and collisions.