Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

The study of the transient night sky offers an opportunity to tackle some long-standing open questions in astrophysics, such as: how and why do stars explode? when do such explosions leave behind neutrons stars or black holes? and what is the origin of the elements? I will show that observations of cosmic explosions, and in particular observations obtained as soon as possible after the explosion, provide new clues about these open questions. I will review the progress made in this field in recent years, present recent results, mostly based on our work with the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), and present prospects for additional discoveries from 
new ground- and space-based surveys.