From the bottom of my heart, thank you so very much to all of you! I can’t believe we have just passed 100 percent. I feel an immense joy at the crossing of this threshold and I can only say time and time again, thank you so very much for your support. 

Book writing is going well, we are approaching the first (extremely rough) draft. You might get a little tease of a new section beyond the intro on the Unbound website soon, so there’s that to be looking forward too as well. I have almost finished the microwave chapter, and then I will tackle the second half of the X-ray chapter. So I have baby planets and the most incredible supermassive black holes to cover ahead of me in the next several weeks.

To celebrate the 100 percent threshold, I will be popping some champagne. I have a bottle that my husband Chris and I bought two years ago with the intention of opening it to mark something really special. Well, today is the day! And since we are having champagne, you should have something champagne related too.

Meet the Champagne Supernova, or SN 2003fg, named after the Oasis song. This event, when discovered was a massive problem. It’s the explosion of a white dwarf, which is something that is known to be predictable and reliable. Well, that is until the universe tells you ‘no’. A white dwarf is the exposed core of a star like our Sun after it has run out of fuel. These white dwarfs can go supernova, but only if they steal material from a companion. They need to be heavy enough for gravity to make them collapse on themselves. And there is a special number at which point that collapse happens. The white dwarf needs to have a mass 40 percent higher than our Sun. Reach that limit and the white dwarf goes boom - but this specific event suggests that it had a mass of about two suns.

Scientists believe that an unusually rapid rotation, or the collision between two white dwarfs could have been responsible for this. The reason why this is important is that white dwarfs going supernova usually always have the same luminosity. Not all supernovae are equal; some are more equal than others. These white dwarf supernovae are usually so equal that we can estimate the distance of galaxies with high precision, and with that study, crucial features of cosmology such as the mysterious accelerated expansion of the Universe.

We’ll meet these supernovae in the ultraviolet chapter of the book. Until then, please keep spreading the word about Invisible Rainbows. Pledging is now done, but it would be great to get as many pre-orders as possible before publication day!