Rage Against the Dying of the Light: old supernovae teach us new tricks

Supernovae - the explosions of stars - play a variety of roles in the workings of the Universe. Some of them are also used as tools for other experiments in astrophysics. Type Ia supernovae, specifically, are used to measure distances to faraway galaxies and, in turn, constrain cosmology. However, we still do not know exactly what types of star systems explode as these supernovae or how the explosions take place. In my talk, I will show how Hubble Space Telescope observations of Type Ia supernovae years after their explosion shed new light on the physics of their explosions.