Question: can 2 stars collide to create an explosion?

Amy Tyndall answered on 10 Mar 2013:

Yes, and it happens! Although they wouldn’t collide as suddenly as, say, two cars bumping into each other on the motorway. This is basically what creates a particular explosion, called a ‘Type IA Supernova’ – here, you have two stars that orbit each other in a binary system, that get closer and closer over time until they merge with each other. Once this combined mass exceeds a certain limit, the whole system explodes in a huge supernova event.