We Asked Our Science Editor to Review the Aespa Song “Supernova.”

Last week, Korean girl group aespa released their new standout single “Supernova,” comparing its bubbly intensity to that of an exploding star. As the music video for the tune reached millions of views, NASA’s Webb Telescope stepped in to share an image of the youngest known remnant of a true supernova – the 340-year-old Cassiopeia A – on X.

NASA loves using pop music to teach people online about the wonders of our universe (the X account also recently referenced this). “Supermassive Black Hole” by Muse and Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso”). Still, the organization’s interest in AESPA got us thinking: How scientifically accurate are the lyrics of “Supernova”? We asked Mashable science editor Mark Kaufman to weigh in on the pop song English translations of the original Korean lyrics of the song.

He started by giving the girls their props. “It’s wonderful that pop superstars are showing supernova-crazy respect,” he wrote. “After all, a supernova – the explosion caused by the collapse of a supermassive star – is one of the largest known explosions in the universe.” That means the song’s opening line, “I’m like some kind of supernova, watch out,” and the lyrics, “Bring the light of a dying star,” are pretty accurate.

What about the lyrics that ask, “Where do we come from?” or the ones that say, “Every one of my cells is made of stars” and “Right now it’s inside me, supernova.”

These are also completely correct, says Kaufman. “[Supernovae] Explosions make life possible. As AESPA rightly notes, we are all products of these great cosmic events. The most massive stars boil vital elements in their cores, like the iron in your blood.” (These cores are also mentioned in the texts: “Have some fun with the core of light.”) So when a supernova explodes, they “sling.” “These materials are distributed throughout galaxies,” says Kaufman. “The explosions themselves create even heavier elements.”

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NASA’s They distribute elements like the calcium in our bones and the iron in our blood throughout space, giving rise to new generations of stars and planets.”

So when Aespa sings, “The event is imminent, this tick-tick bomb,” they are describing the kind of explosions that are common in and crucial to our universe. Stars explode to infinity – the Energy Authority estimates that one explodes “somewhere in the universe” every 10 seconds – but most of us will never be lucky enough to see one of these explosions with our own eyes. “Giant stars that we can see in the night sky will one day become supernovas,” says Kaufman, but that won’t happen in our lifetime. “Perhaps in about 100,000 years, the bright red star Betelgeuse will explode and become the brightest star in the sky for about 100 days – so bright that it will be visible during the day! It’s going to be wild. Or as aespa succinctly characterizes it: ‘Explode crazy.’”

If elements of supernovae live in all of us, then the text “meeting you inside infinity…watch this universe I’ve been out” is exactly right. We may be a small speck in an endless expanse of infinity, but we give meaning to our small place in the universe every day by “producing” our own personal universes.