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Plasma etching (using an ionized gas to carve tiny components on silicon wafers) has long enabled the perpetuation of Moore's Law -- the observation that the number of transistors that can be squeezed into an integrated circuit doubles about every two years. Without the compensating capabilities of plasma etching, Moore's Law would have faltered around 1980 with transistor sizes at about 1 micron (the diameter of a human hair is approximately 40-50 microns wide). Today, etch compensation helps create devices that are smaller than 20 nanometers (1,000 times smaller than a micron).

From the outlook of a planet that resides next to a quiet, relatively predictable star, the circumstances that lead to dramatic stellar explosions elsewhere in the universe can sound somewhat improbable. Some such blasts, known as type Ia supernovae, occur when a small, dense star known as a white dwarf--roughly the diameter of Earth, but hundreds of thousands of times more massive--grows too large by siphoning material off a neighboring star, igniting a thermonuclear explosion.