The U.S. Postal Service has been giving a truly stellar performance. No, it’s not been exemplary. Rather, it’s the pattern one would expect to see in a dying star.
Right now it’s rapidly consuming what’s left of its nuclear fuel and has begun transforming into a red giant stretching out further and further to destroy whatever life exists within its orbit. Such a star then collapses under the forces of gravity to end its life as a dead star. To anyone who has had to endure the travails of doing business by mail, this scenario should have a familiar ring.
Of course, not all stars wind up like this. Some, particularly the most massive, end life more violently as a supernova before transforming into a black hole, i.e., a star whose mass has succumbed so completely to gravity that nothing within reach can escape its gravitational force.
Astrophysicists call this area that’s within reach a black hole’s
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