With this chapter, we let gravity lead us out of the familiar territory of the Solar System and into the arena of the stars. This is a tremendous leap: the furthest planet, Pluto, is never more than 50 AU away from the Earth, while the nearest stars to the Sun – the αCentauri system – are 270 000 AU away! In between is almost nothing. Yet, just as gravity determines the structure of the Sun, so also it governs the stars.

Stars are the workplaces of the Universe. Stars made the rich variety of chemical elements of which we are made; they created the conditions from which our Solar System and life itself evolved; our local star – the Sun – sustains life and, as we shall see, will ultimately extinguish it from the Earth.

1. ▷ The biggest stars are called giants, and the smallest are neutron stars.

Leaping out of the Solar System

The huge variety of kinds of stars gives a clue to why they can do so many different things. There are stars that are 20 times larger than the whole Solar System, and others that are smaller than New York City. Big stars can blow up in huge supernova explosions; small ones can convert mass into energy more efficiently than a nuclear reactor.