Stars
Stars are the brilliant beacons that light up the vast expanse of the night sky, captivating our imaginations. These celestial spheres are born within colossal clouds of gas and dust, where gravitational forces orchestrate their formation. Stars live out their lives radiating light and heat across the cosmos before becoming a new star or exploding spectacularly, leaving beautiful nebulae in their wake.
A Bright Birth
Staying Alive…
A Spectacular Death
Incomprehensible Numbers
I’m sure you have heard that there are more stars in the observable universe than there are grains of sand on the entire Earth (7.5 sextillion, or 7 followed by 17 zeros), but this number is so ridiculously big that it is incomprehensible. Galaxies themselves hold an incomprehensible amount. The Milky Way is estimated to have 100 billion stars. But what does this look like? The Andromeda Galaxy, our nearest neighbor, is also a barred spiral galaxy like the Milky Way, but is estimated to contain 1 trillion stars, which is significantly more than our galaxy. In order to grasp this amount, take a look at the sharpest image of the Andromeda Galaxy ever taken. Zooming in on even one small part of this image can reveal thousands of stars, each making up their own solar systems with planets that may harbor life (if they’re lucky enough). The image shows part of the galaxy and captures over 100 million stars which is only 1/10,000 of the total number of stars in the Andromeda Galaxy. And this is only 1 galaxy out of most the billions and possibly trillions in the universe.
The Andromeda Galaxy