The Death of Stars

In Our Time: Science

BBC

History

4.5 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 7 July 2022

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the abrupt transformation of stars after shining brightly for millions or billions of years, once they lack the fuel to counter the force of gravity. Those like our own star, the Sun, become red giants, expanding outwards and consuming nearby planets, only to collapse into dense white dwarves. The massive stars, up to fifty times the mass of the Sun, burst into supernovas, visible from Earth in daytime, and become incredibly dense neutron stars or black holes. In these moments of collapse, the intense heat and pressure can create all the known elements to form gases and dust which may eventually combine to form new stars, new planets and, as on Earth, new life. The image above is of the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, approximately 10,000 light years away, from a once massive star that died in a supernova explosion that was first seen from Earth in 1690 With Martin Rees Astronomer Royal, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge Carolin Crawford Emeritus Member of the Institute of Astronomy and Emeritus Fellow of Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge And Mark Sullivan Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Southampton Producer: Simon Tillotson

Transcript

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0:00.0	Ever wondered what the world's wealthiest people did to get so ridiculously rich?
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0:11.9	And then we decide if they are actually good, bad or just plain wealthy.
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0:19.2	or what Jeff Bezos really did to become the first person in history to pocket a hundred billion dollars,
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0:35.8	Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time.
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0:40.6	and you can get news about our programs if you follow us on Twitter at BBC In Our Time.
0:45.8	I hope you enjoyed the programs.
0:48.2	Hello, across the universe, stars have been dying for billions of years,
0:52.3	some in enormous explosions, some expanding, then deflating,
0:56.3	and others quietly sputtering out.
0:58.9	Those like our own star, the sun, become red giants,
1:02.0	sprawling outwards only to collapse into white dwarfs.
1:05.5	The massive stars, many times the massive the sun,
1:08.1	burst into supernovas, visible in daytime.
1:11.4	And every element in our bodies, every planet was made in one of those stars,
1:16.4	either as they burned or as they exploded.
1:19.2	We need to discuss the death of stars, I'm Martin Reese,
	...

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