Black holes are born from dying stars. And most are small. And thirty kilometres across. But now scientists have discovered some black holes are much bigger: they’re called supermassive black holes. They’re the same size as our entire solar system. And one of these monsters lies at the heart of our own galaxy. ibid.
We live in a galaxy called the Milky Way. An empire with hundreds of billions of stars. There are two hundred billion galaxies in the known universe. Each one unique, enormous and dynamic. How the Universe Works s1e3: Galaxies
The stars in a galaxy are born in clouds of dust and gas called nebulas. ibid.
Our galaxy contains many billions of stars. And around many of them are systems of planets and moons. But for a long time we didn’t know much about galaxies. Just a century ago we thought the Milky Way was all there was. Scientists called it our island universe. For them no other galaxies existed. Then in 1924 astronomer Edwin Hubble changed that thinking. ibid.
There’s only one thing powerful enough to throw big stars around like that: a supermassive black hole. ibid.
Stars: they’re big. They’re hot. And they’re everywhere. Stars rule the universe. Born in violence, dying in epic explosions. They fill the universe with stardust. The building blocks of life. How the Universe Works s1e4: Stars
Inside a real star, fusion continues for billions of years. The reason is simple: size. Fusion at the core of the stars generates the force of a billion nuclear bombs every second. Gravity and fusion are in an epic battle. ibid.
Iron absorbs energy. From the moment a massive star creates iron it only has seconds to live ... In a few seconds supernovas create more energy than our sun ever will. ibid.
This is an exploding star. It’s called a supernova. Supernovas come in different sizes and types, all of them are so bright they can be seen across the universe. But this violent destruction of a star is also the birth of everything we see around us. How the Universe Works s1e5: Supernovas
Really big stars die with a violent explosion called a supernova. They’re so violent if one of them exploded a few dozen light years away planet Earth would be scorched. ibid.
Our sun won’t become a supernova: it’s too small. ibid.
To construct a star you also need magnetism … The swirling gas and the forming star and its surrounding disc generate powerful magnetic fields. How the Universe Works s5e1: Most Amazing Discoveries
The core of the star crushes inward supercharging its magnetism. ibid.
Monsters: In the last decade astronomers have uncovered a sinister side to our universe: killer stars, stars that can annihilate on a cosmic scale. Solar systems torn to shreds. Living worlds vaporized in an instant. How the Universe Works s5e5: Stars that Kill
Stars can also annihilate each other … In 2012 the Hubble Space Telescope discovered a new breed of stars sucking the very life from their neighbours. ibid.
Across the universe there are stellar systems totally different from our own containing two stars instead of one. Our sun isn’t so typical after all. These are binary stars and they created some of the most lethal places in the universe. How the Universe Works s6e3: Twin Suns
Imagine living in the light of two suns. ibid.
We know of hundreds of millisecond pulsars scattered across the cosmos … Some of them are alone: what’s happened to their sibling? ibid.
Could two stars create a habitable oasis on alien worlds? ibid.
Imagine a universe with no stars. A dull endless night … This is our future … They’re dying out. How the Universe Works s8e4: Death of the Last Stars
One possible interpretation of the New Star of 1572 which was put forward by some intellectuals, was that this was the star the Wise Men saw ... And it’s now returned. Simon Schaffer, University of Cambridge
Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art –
Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores. John Keats, 1819
And still they were the same bright, patient stars. John Keats, Hyperion: A Fragment
Stars are beautiful, but they must not take an active part in anything, they must just look on for ever. It is a punishment put on them for something they did so long ago that no star now knows what it was. J M Barrie
If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature and Selected Essays
The meek shall inherit the Earth. And the rest of us will go to the stars. Omni Magazine
At whose sight all the stars
Hide their diminished heads. John Milton, Paradise Lost 4:109
A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold,
And pavement stars — as starts to thee appear
Soon in the galaxy, that milky way
Which mightly as a circling zone thou seest
Powder’d with stars. ibid.
Sweet the coming on
Of grateful evening mild, then silent night
With this her solemn bird and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heaven, her starry train. ibid. 4:646
The stars are the souls of dead poets. Vincent van Gogh
The night is even more richly coloured than the day ... If only one pays attention to it, one sees that certain stars are citron yellow, while others have a pink glow or a green, blue and forget-me-not brilliance. And without my expiating on this theme, it should be clear that putting little white dots on a blue-black surface is not enough. Vincent van Gogh
The lamps are burning and the starry sky is over it all. Vincent van Gogh
Wise Man: We are led by a star.
Brian’s mother: Led by a bottle more like. Monty Python’s Life of Brain 1979 starring Graham Chapman & John Cleese & Terry Gilliam & Eric Idle & Terry Jones & Michael Palin & Carol Cleveland & Patricia Quinn & Judy Loe & Simon Jones & Matt Frewer & Jane Leeves et al, director Terry Jones
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky. Ann & Jane Taylor, Rhymes for the Nursery, 1806
When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun. William Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet III ii @21
Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere. William Shakespeare, I Henry IV V iv 65
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars but in ourselves. William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar 1970 starring Charlton Heston & Diana Rigg & Jason Robards & Christopher Lee & John Gielgud & Robert Vaughn & Richard Chamberlain & Richard Johnson & Jill Bennett et al, director Stuart Burge
Stars, hide your fires,
Let not light see my black and deep desires. William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Macbeth I iv 50-51, Macbeth
Our destiny is linked with the destiny of stars. Machio Kaku
Gravity is compressing the outer layers of the star. We have this constant tension between Gravity which wants to crush a star to smithereens, and also the energy released by the fusion process which wants to blow the star apart. And that tension, that balancing act, creates the star. Michio Kaku
We are intimately and ultimately children of the stars. We are made of star stuff. Beautiful Minds: Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell
And he that strives to touch the stars,
Oft stumbles at a straw. Edmund Spenser, The Shepherd’s Calendar
As long as you still experience the stars as something above you, you still lack a viewpoint of knowledge. Friedrich Nietzsche