I watched a youtube thing last night (one of my subscriptions) and they were discussing how supernovae work.

The question was posed, "If a star dies by collapsing then why are supernovae so huge and known fo being huge explosions of matter?".

He analogised by using a football and a tennis ball. He said the football was like the huge core of the star that was collapsing an dthe tennis ball was like the rest of the lighter matter around the core.

He held the football out with the tennis ball on top of it and dropped it from shoulder height. The football landed and bounced only a few centimetres but the tennis ball went flying and hit the ceiling.

The same thing happens in a star. The "loose" matter around the outside collapses inwards to the collapsing core but the sudden stop of the compression rebounds into the loose matter and sends it flying.

Newtonøs cradle.

Indeed.

I suppose that in my anaolgy the third ball in the cradle is the earth.