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00:00We pulled the stars from the skies
00:06and brought them down to Earth.
00:23But at what cost?
00:26When we turned on all these lights?
00:30We lost something precious.
00:33The stars.
01:00I'm not afraid, don't we?
01:01I'm not afraid, don't we?
01:02The stars.
01:03The stars.
01:04The stars.
01:04The stars.
01:05The stars.
01:06The stars.
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03:12motions of the stars across the nights of the year foretold changes on earth that threatened or
03:18enhanced our chances for survival in a time when our imaginations were the only stage where stories
03:24came to life before there were movies or tvs or electronic devices of any kind every human culture
03:31connected the dots to form their own pictures these images became the illustrations of a storybook
03:39that on a deeper level was also a survival manual the names and personalities of the gods heroes
03:46farm animals or familiar objects varied from culture to culture but there was one particularly
03:52gorgeous group of stars known to the ancient greeks and to us today as the pleiades
04:01a star cluster formed about a hundred million years ago each of them is some 40 times brighter than our
04:07sun and alcyone the most luminous outshines our sun a thousand times for ages the pleiades have been
04:16used as an eye test for people all over the world if you could see at least six of them you were
04:23considered normal if you saw more than seven you are an ideal candidate for a warrior or scout
04:30among the ancient celts and druids of the british isles the pleiades were believed to have a haunting
04:35significance on the night of the year that they reached the highest point in the sky at midnight
04:41the spirits of the dead were thought to wander the earth this is believed to be the origin of the
04:46holiday once known as saw win now called halloween all over the earth our ancestors told wonderful
04:54stories to explain how the pleiades came to be in the sky for the kiowa people of north america it
05:01happened something like this
05:11long long ago some young women snuck away from their campsite
05:16to dance freely beneath the stars
05:30long long ago some young women snuck away from the young women's
05:34cold air
05:35to do
05:35cold air
05:37the
05:41i
05:42oh
05:43oh
05:44oh
05:44oh
05:44oh
05:44oh
05:45oh
05:46oh
05:47oh
05:48oh
05:48oh
05:48oh
05:48oh
05:49oh
05:50oh
05:51oh
05:51oh
05:52oh
05:54oh
05:55oh
05:55oh
05:56oh
05:57oh
05:58Heard their cries and grew taller.
06:07Until it became what is today known as the Devil's Tower.
06:16The maidens were transformed into the stars of the Pleiades,
06:20which may be seen hanging above the tower in midwinter.
06:23The ancient Greeks also saw those seven jewels as seven maidens,
06:30the seven daughters of Atlas.
06:34Pursued not by bears, but by Orion the hunter,
06:38who spied them when he was out walking one day.
06:50Orion became mad with desire.
06:53For seven years, he chased them relentlessly.
07:07Exhausted, they prayed to Zeus for deliverance.
07:13Zeus, the king of the gods, felt sorry for them
07:16and transformed those seven maidens into the Pleiades.
07:31But the gods are, if anything, capricious.
07:35When Orion was killed by the sting of a scorpion,
07:38Zeus placed him in the sky,
07:40where he could resume his pursuit of the seven gorgeous sisters.
07:44Our ancestors, they wove brilliantly imaginative stories,
07:48but they can bring us no closer to the stars than our dreams.
07:51It took yet another few thousand years
07:53until three brilliant scientists
07:55unlocked the secrets of the true lives of the stars.
07:58In 1901, Harvard was a man's world.
08:14But an astronomer named Edward Charles Pickering broke that rule.
08:18Old Pickering's office is just down the hallway.
08:24And that door over there leads to the room
08:26where he keeps his computers.
08:29We're supposed to call those women computers,
08:43but I've heard more than one fellow
08:46refer to those gals as Pickering's harem.
08:50Pickering assembled a team of women
08:52to map and classify the types of stars.
08:55One of them provided the key to our understanding
08:58of the substance of the stars,
09:00and another devised a way for us
09:03to calculate the size of the universe.
09:06For some reason,
09:07you probably never heard of either of them.
09:10I wonder why.
09:14That's Annie Jump Cannon, the leader of the team.
09:18Before she was through,
09:19she catalogued a quarter of a million stars.
09:24Number 11 is the P-7.
09:27That's Icyone in the Pleiades.
09:30Cannon lost her hearing during a bout of scarlet fever
09:33when she was a young woman.
09:34Number 12 is the P-6.
09:37That's Henrietta Swan Leavitt.
09:40She's also deaf,
09:41and she's the other great scientist in the room.
09:44Leavitt discovered the law
09:45that astronomers still use more than a century later
09:48to measure the distances to the stars
09:51and the size of the cosmos itself.
09:55Annie Jump Cannon sent out a Christmas card
09:58explaining what she and her sisters were actually doing.
10:02The light from a star is allowed to fall through a prism
10:04placed in the telescope, she wrote.
10:07Thus magnified,
10:09the starlight is split up into a band,
10:11showing its component colors.
10:12The red rays going to one end,
10:15and the violet to the other.
10:17This is the spectrum of the star.
10:20It shows the presence of fine, dark lines.
10:23By comparing them with lines given
10:25by glowing substances in the laboratory,
10:27we can determine
10:28that the same elements familiar to us on the Earth
10:31also exist in the outermost star.
10:44This is plate number 12358B.
10:54Number one at this plate
10:57is a B-type star.
11:01Make that a B-type.
11:06It took Cannon decades
11:08to classify the spectral character
11:10of hundreds of thousands of stars
11:12according to the scheme that she devised.
11:16Cannon discovered
11:16that the stars fell into a continuous sequence
11:19of seven broad categories
11:21according to their spectral line patterns.
11:24Each was designated by a letter.
11:27But the spectral lines of two stars
11:29in the same letter class
11:30could differ in subtle ways,
11:33minute variations that Cannon learned
11:35to recognize from memory.
11:37To distinguish these spectra from one another,
11:40she assigned ten numerical subcategories
11:42for each class.
11:44Annie Jump Cannon organized the stars,
11:47but it would fall to another scientist
11:48to decipher the hidden meaning in her work.
11:51In the England of 1923,
11:55women were forbidden from pursuing advanced degrees in science.
12:00But Cecilia Payne had attended a lecture in London
12:02by the astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington,
12:05the first scientist to provide evidence
12:07that Einstein's revolutionary general theory of relativity
12:10was correct.
12:11From that moment on,
12:12she knew that nothing would deter her
12:14from pursuing her big dreams.
12:18She resolved to emigrate to America,
12:21where women had already gained the freedom
12:23to study the stars.
12:25Her application was accepted at Harvard.
12:27What she would discover there
12:30would challenge one of the central beliefs of astronomy.
12:33The resulting impact
12:35would be the dawn of modern astrophysics.
12:38As the decades passed,
12:46Annie Jump Cannon and her team
12:47kept sifting the stars,
12:49checking each one's spectral signature
12:51with a fleeting glance
12:53and then dropping them into one of seven categories.
12:56They became hundreds of thousands of dots
12:58in a larger picture
13:00which no one could yet understand.
13:02Into this community of women
13:05came one more.
13:08Well, hello there.
13:11You must be Miss Payne.
13:13We've been waiting for you.
13:15Come on in.
13:17Cecilia Payne had never experienced
13:19such kindness in a scientific setting before.
13:22This sisterhood generously shared
13:25the fruits of their labors with her
13:26and she turned their observations
13:28into a radical new understanding of the stars.
13:32The two women became great friends.
13:35Cannon taught Payne everything she had learned
13:37about stellar spectra
13:38and Payne began to analyze Cannon's data
13:40to see if she could determine
13:42the actual chemical composition
13:44and physical state of the stars.
13:46She brought to this work
13:47her expertise in theoretical and atomic physics.
13:50The most prominent features
13:54of the spectra of stars
13:56showed the presence of heavy elements
13:58such as calcium
13:59and iron
14:01which are among the most abundant elements
14:03in the Earth.
14:05So astronomers naturally concluded
14:07that the stars
14:08were made of the same elements as the Earth
14:10in roughly the same proportions.
14:12In 1924, Henry Norris Russell
14:16was the dean of American astronomers
14:19having made major contributions
14:21to our understanding of the stars.
14:2340 to 45 of the chemical elements
14:26that we have here on Earth
14:28are also present in the spectrum of the sun
14:31so we can assume
14:32that the composition of the sun
14:34resembles that of the Earth.
14:36If one were to heat
14:38the crust of the Earth
14:40to incandescence
14:41its spectrum would resemble
14:43that of the sun.
14:59Annie,
15:00I think I now understand
15:01what it all means.
15:03All your years of work.
15:05Tell me.
15:06I've calculated
15:07what the spectra should look like
15:08across a wide range of temperatures
15:10and they match
15:12your system of classification perfectly.
15:15The spectrum of any star
15:16tells you exactly how hot it is.
15:19Your OBAFGKM
15:21is really a temperature scale of the stars
15:24from the hottest to the coldest.
15:29Here's the headline, Annie.
15:30Thanks to your work
15:32I've discovered that the stars
15:33are made almost entirely
15:34of hydrogen and helium.
15:35There's a million times
15:37more hydrogen and helium
15:39than the metals in the stars.
15:41I know.
15:42It sounds stuffed.
15:44Are you certain?
15:46Has anyone else
15:48checked your calculations?
15:50Not yet
15:51but it's all in my thesis
15:53which is already on its way
15:54to Professor Russell.
15:55Poor woman.
16:08Russell felt sorry for Cecilia Payne.
16:12Her thesis appeared to him
16:14to be fundamentally flawed.
16:16It is clearly impossible
16:25that hydrogen should be
16:27a million times more abundant
16:28than the metals.
16:34Her carefully gathered evidence
16:36flew in the face
16:37of conventional scientific wisdom.
16:39How could I be right, she asked,
16:43if that must mean
16:44that such a distinguished scientist
16:46was wrong?
16:49Despite her confidence
16:50in the quality of her research,
16:52she caved and added a sentence
16:54to her thesis
16:55that undermined
16:56its greatest insight.
16:58It would be four years
17:05before Russell realized
17:07that Payne was right.
17:08To his credit,
17:09as soon as he did,
17:11he acknowledged
17:11that it was her discovery.
17:18Payne's stellar atmosphere
17:19is widely regarded
17:21as the most brilliant PhD thesis
17:23ever written in astronomy.
17:25It became the standard text
17:26in its field.
17:28I was to blame
17:31for not having pressed my point.
17:33I had given in to authority
17:35when I believed I was right.
17:38If you are sure of your facts,
17:40you should defend your position.
17:44The words of the powerful
17:45may prevail in other spheres
17:47of human experience,
17:49but in science,
17:50the only thing that counts
17:52is the evidence
17:52and the logic
17:54of the argument itself.
17:55Cecilia Payne's interpretation
17:57of Annie Jump Cannon's
17:58sequence of stellar spectra
17:59made it possible for us
18:01to read the life stories
18:03of the stars
18:03and to trace the story
18:05of life itself
18:06back to its beginnings
18:08in their fiery deaths.
18:10There are many kinds of stars.
18:18Some are bright,
18:20like the sun.
18:22Some are dim.
18:24The greatest stars
18:25are 10 million times larger
18:26than the smallest ones.
18:29Some stars are old
18:29beyond imagining,
18:31more than 10 billion years of age.
18:33others are being born right now.
18:40When atoms fuse
18:42in the hearts of stars,
18:43they make starlight.
18:45Stars are born in litters,
18:47formed from the gas
18:48and dust of interstellar clouds.
18:50The mass of the individual stars
18:52in a litter
18:53can range from the runts,
18:55not much larger
18:56than the largest planets,
18:57to the supergiant stars
18:59that dwarf the sun.
19:00The stars in the nebula
19:08below Orion's belt
19:09are newborns,
19:11around 5 million years old,
19:13and still swaddled
19:14in the gas and dust
19:15that gave birth to them.
19:18The stars in the Pleiades
19:19are already toddlers,
19:21about 100 million years old.
19:23They've shed their blankets
19:24of gas and dust,
19:26but they're still bound together
19:27by their mutual gravity.
19:29Another few hundred million years,
19:30and they'll drift apart
19:32and go their separate ways,
19:34never to meet again.
19:36Most of the stars
19:37of the Big Dipper
19:38are adolescents,
19:40roughly a half a billion years old.
19:42They've already drifted apart
19:43from their birth cluster,
19:45although we can still trace
19:46their common ancestry.
19:48Eventually,
19:48they'll spread out
19:49around the Milky Way galaxy.
19:52But most of the familiar
19:53constellations
19:54are a mix of entirely
19:56unrelated stars,
19:57some faint and nearby,
19:59others bright and far away.
20:05Our own sun?
20:07From the distance
20:07of even a few light years,
20:09it's hard to find
20:10amidst the other stars.
20:11That one.
20:15Our sun is middle-aged
20:17and a long way
20:18from where it was born.
20:19Its sister stars,
20:21hatched from the same
20:21interstellar cloud,
20:23are dispersed
20:23throughout the galaxy.
20:26Many of them
20:27have their own planets.
20:29Perhaps some of them
20:29nurture the evolution
20:31of life and intelligence.
20:33Most of the stars
20:34in our night sky
20:35actually orbit around
20:36one or more
20:37stellar companions.
20:38With the naked eye,
20:40we usually can't see
20:41the fainter members
20:42in such double
20:43and multiple star systems.
20:47On a world
20:48with three suns,
20:49the nights would be rare
20:50and the days
20:51might alternate
20:52between red and blue.
21:01It is the destiny
21:02of stars to collapse.
21:04Of the thousands
21:05of stars you see
21:06when you look up
21:06at the night sky,
21:08every one of them
21:08is living
21:09in an interval
21:09between two collapses.
21:12An initial collapse
21:13of a dark interstellar
21:14gas cloud
21:14to form the star
21:15and a final collapse
21:17of the luminous star
21:18on its way
21:19to its ultimate fate.
21:21Gravity makes stars
21:22contract
21:23unless some other
21:24force intervenes.
21:26The sun
21:26is a great big ball
21:27of incandescent gas.
21:29The super hot gas
21:30in its core
21:31pushes the sun
21:32to expand outward.
21:34At the same time,
21:35the sun's own gravity
21:36pulls it inward
21:37to contract.
21:38And our sun is poised
21:40between these two forces
21:41in a stable equilibrium
21:42between gravity
21:44and nuclear fire.
21:46A balance it will maintain
21:48for another
21:48four billion years.
21:50But as the sun consumes hydrogen,
21:53its core
21:53very slowly shrinks.
21:56The sun's surface
21:57gradually expands
21:58in response.
21:58happens very slowly,
22:01imperceptibly,
22:01over the course
22:02of millions of years.
22:04But in about
22:04a billion years,
22:06the sun will be
22:06ten percent brighter
22:07than it is today.
22:12Ten percent
22:13may not sound like much,
22:14but that extra heat
22:15will have a big effect
22:17on Earth.
22:17When the sun
22:26finally exhausts
22:27its nuclear fuel
22:28four or five billion
22:29years from now,
22:31its gas will cool
22:32and the pressure
22:33will fall.
22:35The sun's interior
22:36can no longer support
22:37the weight
22:37of the outer layers
22:38and the initial collapse
22:40will resume.
22:43Nothing lasts forever.
22:45Even the stars die.
22:46Helium,
22:48the ash
22:49of ten billion years
22:50of hydrogen fusion,
22:51has built up
22:52in the core.
22:53With no nuclear fire
22:55to sustain its weight,
22:56the core collapses
22:57until it becomes
22:58hot enough
22:58to start fusing helium
23:00into carbon
23:01and oxygen.
23:02The core of the sun
23:03is now much hotter
23:04than it was before.
23:06Its atmosphere
23:07rapidly expands.
23:09Over the next
23:09billion years,
23:10it'll become bloated
23:11to more than
23:12a hundred times
23:13its original size.
23:15A red giant star.
23:16It will envelop
23:21and devour
23:22the planets Mercury
23:24and Venus
23:28and possibly
23:35the Earth.
23:38I'd like to think
23:39that tens of millions
23:40of years
23:41before that far
23:42distant future,
23:43if there still be
23:44life born of Earth,
23:46it will have found
23:47new homes
23:48among the stars.
23:51Once the sun burns
23:53through its helium,
23:54it will become
23:55highly unstable,
23:56casting off its outer layers
23:58into space.
24:00The exposed super-hot core
24:03will flood its surroundings
24:04with high-energy,
24:05ultraviolet light.
24:09The atoms will perform
24:11a wild, fluorescent dance.
24:13The sun will collapse
24:21like a souffle,
24:22shrinking a hundredfold
24:23to the size of the Earth.
24:25And at that point,
24:26the sun will be so dense
24:28that its overcrowded electrons
24:30will push back,
24:31stopping any further contraction.
24:33The kernel of light
24:34at the center
24:35will be the only part
24:36of the sun
24:37that endures.
24:38A white dwarf star
24:40that will go on shining dimly
24:42for another hundred billion years.
24:45Will the beings
24:45of a distant future
24:46sailing past
24:48this wreck of a star
24:48have any idea
24:50of the life and worlds
24:52that it once warmed?
24:53The psychedelic death shrouds
25:16of ordinary stars
25:17are fleeting,
25:18lasting only tens
25:21of thousands of years
25:22before dissipating
25:24in the interstellar gas
25:25and dust
25:26from which the new stars
25:27will be born.
25:33The stars in a binary star system
25:35can have different fate.
25:38Sirius,
25:38the brightest star
25:39in the night sky,
25:40has a very faint
25:42stellar companion,
25:43a white dwarf.
25:45It was once
25:45a sun-like star.
25:46Someday,
25:48when Sirius runs out
25:49of fuel
25:49and becomes
25:50a red giant,
25:51it will shed
25:52its substance
25:53onto the white dwarf.
25:55The intense gravity
25:56of the companion
25:57will attract that gas,
25:59pulling it
25:59into a spiraling disk.
26:01When the gas
26:02from the larger star
26:03falls onto the surface
26:04of the white dwarf,
26:05it will trigger
26:06nuclear explosions.
26:12The greatest burst
26:13will release
26:14100,000 times
26:15more energy
26:16than the sun.
26:18Each one
26:19of those starbursts
26:20is called a nova,
26:22from the latin
26:23for new.
26:25A star about 15 times
26:27as massive
26:27as the sun,
26:28one like Rigel,
26:29the blue supergiant
26:31that forms
26:31the right foot
26:32of Orion,
26:33has a different fate
26:34in store.
26:35Its collapse
26:36will not be stopped
26:37by the pressure
26:37of electrons.
26:40The star
26:41will keep falling
26:42in on itself
26:43until its nuclei
26:45become so overcrowded
26:46that they push back.
26:51Roger will shrink down
26:53about 100,000 times
26:54until there's no space
26:56left between the nuclei
26:57and it can shrink
26:59no more.
27:00At that point,
27:06it ignites
27:06a more powerful
27:07nuclear reaction,
27:09a supernova.
27:15Most stellar evolution
27:17takes millions
27:18or billions of years,
27:20but the interior collapse
27:21that triggers
27:21a supernova explosion
27:22takes only seconds.
27:25What remains
27:26will be an atomic nucleus
27:28the size of a small city
27:29rapidly rotating
27:31neutron star
27:32called a pulsar.
27:46But for a star
27:47more than 30 times
27:49as massive as the sun,
27:50a star like Alnilon
27:52in Orion's belt,
27:53there will be
27:54no stopping
27:55its collapse.
27:56In a few million years,
27:58when Alnilon runs
27:59out of fuel,
28:00it too will go supernova.
28:02The imploding core
28:03of Alnilon
28:04will be so massive
28:07that not even
28:08nuclear forces
28:09will be strong enough
28:10to hold off
28:10its collapse.
28:12Nothing can withstand
28:13such gravity,
28:14and such a star
28:15has an astonishing destiny.
28:21It will continue
28:23to collapse,
28:24crossing a boundary
28:25in space-time
28:26called the event horizon
28:27beyond which
28:29we cannot see.
28:31When it traverses
28:32that frontier,
28:33the star
28:34will vanish
28:35completely from sight.
28:37It will be
28:38inside a black hole,
28:40a place
28:41where gravity
28:42is so strong
28:42that nothing,
28:44not even light,
28:45can escape.
28:46but there's an even
28:52more dramatic fate
28:54that awaits
28:54a rare kind of star.
28:56There's one of them
28:57in our galaxy.
28:58It's so unstable
28:59that when it goes,
29:01it won't become
29:01a mere nova
29:02or supernova.
29:04It'll become something
29:05far more catastrophic,
29:07a hypernova.
29:09And it could happen
29:10in our lifetime.
29:22There are few places
29:24on Earth
29:24to get a better view
29:25of the night sky
29:26than the Australian
29:27outback.
29:30No buildings,
29:32no cars,
29:33streetlights,
29:34nothing out here.
29:36Just lots of starlight,
29:38the occasional kangaroo.
29:39You can get
29:40a particularly good view
29:41of the Milky Way
29:42from down here.
29:43The center of our galaxy
29:44rises high in the sky,
29:47and it arches
29:48across the heavens
29:49like the backbone
29:50of night.
29:51We live in a spiral galaxy,
29:53and when we look
29:54at the Milky Way,
29:55we're seeing light
29:56from billions of stars
29:57in its spiral disk.
29:59And under this
30:00beautiful dark sky,
30:02you can see
30:02that the Milky Way
30:03isn't a uniform
30:04band of light.
30:06They're dark patches,
30:07breaks in the starlight.
30:08Those dark patches
30:10are caused
30:11by interstellar dust.
30:12The dust blocks
30:13the starlight,
30:14and there's lots of it.
30:17Most cultures
30:18looked up at the stars
30:20and connected the dots
30:21to form familiar images
30:22in the sky,
30:24constellations.
30:25But the aboriginal people
30:33of Australia
30:33saw a pattern
30:35in the darkness
30:35running through
30:36the Milky Way.
30:38They saw an emu,
30:39a large bird
30:41native to this continent.
30:43Not in the stars,
30:44but in the absence
30:45of stars.
30:49There's so many ways
30:50to look at the night sky.
30:51For a million years
30:53or more,
30:54we've watched the sky,
30:55and a lot's happened
30:56in that time.
30:58Supernova explode
30:59in our galaxy
30:59about once a century.
31:01If we could compress
31:02all those nights
31:03of stargazing
31:04into a single minute,
31:06this is what
31:08we would see.
31:13Now, if our eyes
31:14were telescopes,
31:16if they were light buckets
31:17as big as wagon wheels,
31:18and our vision
31:19was not limited
31:20to just one kind of light,
31:22then this is the Milky Way
31:24we would see.
31:27A galaxy
31:28in near-infrared light
31:29with streaming tendrils
31:31of dust
31:32hurled outward
31:33by those exploding supernovas,
31:35silhouetted
31:35against a backdrop
31:36of countless stars.
31:39About 7,500 light years away,
31:42in another part
31:43of our galaxy,
31:44there is a place
31:45of upheaval
31:46on an inconceivable scale.
31:55This is the Carina Nebula,
31:58a star-making machine.
32:05It takes a ray of light
32:0750 years to cross it.
32:08The Titanic stars born here
32:15sear the surrounding
32:16gas and dust
32:17with their fierce
32:18ultraviolet radiation.
32:21When a massive star dies,
32:23it blows itself
32:24to smithereens.
32:28Its substance
32:30is propelled
32:30across the vastness
32:32to be stirred
32:33by starlight
32:33and gathered up
32:34by gravity.
32:36Stars to dust
32:37and dust to stars.
32:40In the cosmos,
32:42nothing is wasted.
32:45But there's an upper limit
32:47to how massive
32:48a star can be.
32:51Back in the 17th century,
32:53when Edmund Halley
32:54crossed the equator
32:55to map the southern
32:56constellations,
32:57Ada Carina
32:58seemed like
32:59just another
32:59faint star.
33:00But in 1843,
33:02Ada Carina
33:03suddenly became
33:04the second brightest
33:04star in the sky,
33:06outshined only
33:07by Sirius.
33:08And it's been
33:09flipping out
33:10ever since.
33:13That dumbbell-shaped cloud
33:16is the expanding
33:17remnant
33:17of that event.
33:18At its center
33:24is one crazy star.
33:27Talk about unstable.
33:28Ada Carina
33:29is at least
33:30a hundred times
33:31more massive
33:31than the sun
33:32and pouring out
33:33five million times
33:34more light.
33:36It's pushing
33:37the upper limit
33:37of what a star
33:38can be.
33:41What's more,
33:42there's evidence
33:43that Ada Carina
33:44is being
33:44gravitationally
33:45tormented
33:46by an evil twin.
33:47Another massive star
33:49in orbit around it
33:50as close as
33:51Saturn is
33:52to the sun.
33:54The core
33:55of a supermassive star
33:56pours out
33:57so much light
33:58that the outward
33:59pressure can
34:00overwhelm
34:01the star's gravity.
34:03If a star
34:03is too massive,
34:04its radiation pressure
34:06overpowers its gravity
34:07and blows
34:08the star apart.
34:11The fate
34:12of Ada Carina
34:13was sealed
34:14when it was born
34:14millions of years ago.
34:16When it finally
34:17does blow up
34:18and who knows,
34:19maybe it already has.
34:21After all,
34:22we're looking at it
34:22by light that left
34:23the star
34:247,500 years ago.
34:26It will be a cataclysm
34:27unlike anything
34:28we've seen before.
34:30A hypernova.
34:31an explosion
34:44so powerful
34:45it'll make a supernova
34:46seem like a firecracker
34:48by comparison.
34:49If there are nearby
34:51solar systems
34:52with planets
34:52harboring life,
34:54their days are numbered.
34:55A hypernova
34:57spews so much radiation
34:59into space,
35:00not just light,
35:01but X-rays
35:01and gamma rays
35:02that planets
35:04that are dozens
35:05or perhaps hundreds
35:06of light years away
35:07could be stripped
35:08of their atmospheres
35:09and bathed
35:10in deadly radiation.
35:12It would wreak havoc
35:13in thousands
35:14of nearby star systems.
35:17Right about now,
35:17you're probably
35:18asking yourself,
35:19are we safe?
35:20If Ada Carina blows up,
35:24what happens to Earth?
35:26Rest assured,
35:28Earth will be just fine.
35:30Remember,
35:30we're 7,500 light years
35:32away from Ada Carina.
35:33The intensity of radiation
35:35from a star,
35:36even an exploding star,
35:37falls off rapidly
35:38with distance.
35:40But still,
35:41Ada Carina
35:42in its death throes
35:43will put on
35:44quite a show.
35:45It will light up
35:46the night
35:46of the southern hemisphere
35:47with the brightness
35:48of a second moon,
35:49the most dramatic
35:51swan song
35:51a star can sing.
36:00Our ancestors
36:01worshipped the sun.
36:03They were far
36:04from foolish.
36:06It makes good sense
36:07to revere
36:08the sun and stars
36:09because we
36:10are their children.
36:12The silicon
36:13in the rocks,
36:14the oxygen
36:14in the air,
36:15the carbon
36:16in our DNA,
36:17the iron
36:18in our skyscrapers,
36:19the silver
36:20in our jewelry
36:20were all made
36:22in stars
36:23billions of years ago.
36:25Our planet,
36:26our society,
36:27and we ourselves
36:28are stardust.
36:30But what is it
36:33that makes the atoms
36:34dance?
36:36How is the energy
36:37of a star
36:38transformed
36:39into everything
36:40that happens
36:40in the world?
36:42What is energy?
36:44We're awash in it.
36:46When hydrogen atoms
36:47fuse inside the sun,
36:48they make helium atoms.
36:50And this fusion
36:51emits a burst
36:52of energy
36:53that can wander
36:54inside the sun
36:55for 10 million years
36:56before making its way
36:57to the surface.
36:58And once there,
37:00it's free
37:01to fly straight
37:02from the sun
37:02to the earth
37:03as visible light.
37:06If it should strike
37:07the surface
37:07of a leaf,
37:08it will be stored
37:09in the plant
37:10as chemical energy.
37:13Sunshine
37:13into moonshine.
37:15I can feel my brain
37:36turning the chemical
37:38energy of the wine
37:39into the electrical
37:40energy of my thoughts
37:41and directing
37:42my vocal cords
37:43to produce
37:44the acoustic energy
37:45of my voice.
37:46Such transformations
37:47of energy
37:48are happening
37:49everywhere
37:49all the time.
37:51Energy from our star
37:52drives the wind
37:54and the waves
37:54and the life
37:55around us.
37:56How lucky we are
37:57to have this vast source
37:59of clean energy
38:00falling like manna
38:01from heaven
38:02on all of us.
38:03to Annie Jump Cannon,
38:06Henrietta Swan Leavitt
38:07and Cecilia Payne
38:09for blazing the trail
38:10to modern astrophysics
38:12and to all
38:13the sisters
38:14of the sun.
38:15There's no refuge
38:23from change
38:24in the cosmos.
38:26Some 10 or 20 million
38:27years from now,
38:29it'll seem
38:30for a cosmic moment
38:31as if Orion
38:32is finally about
38:33to catch
38:33the seven sisters.
38:35But before he has
38:36them in his clutches,
38:38the biggest stars
38:38of Orion
38:39will go supernova.
38:41Orion's pursuit
38:42of the Pleiades
38:43will finally end.
38:45And the seven sisters
38:46will glide serenely
38:48into the waiting arms
38:49of the Milky Way.
38:53We unearth marvel
38:55and rightly so
38:56at the return
38:57of our solitary sun.
39:00But from a planet
39:01orbiting a star
39:01in a distant
39:02globular cluster,
39:04a still more
39:04glorious dawn awaits.
39:07Not a sunrise,
39:10but a galaxy rise.
39:13A morning filled
39:14with 200 billion suns.
39:17The rising
39:18of the Milky Way.
39:21An enormous spiral form
39:23with collapsing gas clouds,
39:25condensing planetary systems,
39:27luminous supergiant,
39:28stable middle-aged suns,
39:30red giants,
39:31white dwarfs,
39:32planetary nebulas,
39:34supernovas,
39:35neutron stars,
39:36pulsars,
39:36black holes.
39:37And there's every reason
39:39to think
39:39other exotic objects
39:41that we have yet
39:42to discover.
39:44From such a world
39:45high above the Milky Way,
39:48it would be clear,
39:49as it is beginning
39:50to be clear on our world,
39:52that we are made
39:54by the atoms
39:54and the stars.
39:56that our matter
39:58and our form
39:59are forged
40:00by the great
40:01and ancient cosmos
40:02of which
40:05we are a part.
40:07.
40:09.
40:15.
40:16.
40:17.
40:17.
40:17.
40:17.
40:22.