The Death of Stars
In Our Time7 Juli 2022

The Death of Stars

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

Avsnitt(1086)

Demosthenes' Philippics

Demosthenes' Philippics

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the speeches that became a byword for fierce attacks on political opponents. It was in the 4th century BC, in Athens, that Demosthenes delivered these speeches against ...

15 Dec 202256min

Bauhaus

Bauhaus

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Bauhaus which began in 1919 in Weimar, Germany, as a school for arts and crafts combined, and went on to be famous around the world. Under its first director, Walte...

8 Dec 202256min

The Morant Bay Rebellion

The Morant Bay Rebellion

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the rebellion that broke out in Jamaica on 11th October 1865 when Paul Bogle (1822-65) led a protest march from Stony Gut to the courthouse in nearby Morant Bay. There...

1 Dec 202253min

Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the celebrated British poet of World War One. Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) had published only a handful of poems when he was killed a week before the end of the war, but in...

24 Nov 202256min

The Fish-Tetrapod Transition

The Fish-Tetrapod Transition

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the greatest changes in the history of life on Earth. Around 400 million years ago some of our ancestors, the fish, started to become a little more like humans. ...

17 Nov 202255min

Berthe Morisot

Berthe Morisot

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the influential painters at the heart of the French Impressionist movement: Berthe Morisot (1841-1895). The men in her circle could freely paint in busy bars an...

10 Nov 20221h

The Knights Templar

The Knights Templar

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the military order founded around 1119, twenty years after the Crusaders captured Jerusalem. For almost 200 years the Knights Templar were a notable fighting force and ...

3 Nov 202249min

The Electron

The Electron

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss an atomic particle that's become inseparable from modernity. JJ Thomson discovered the electron 125 years ago, so revealing that atoms, supposedly the smallest things, ...

27 Okt 202249min

Populärt inom Historia

kod-katastrof
massmordarpodden
p3-historia
historiska-brott
olosta-mord
motiv
historiepodden-se
rss-historien-om
rss-seriemordarpodden
historianu-med-urban-lindstedt
rss-historiska-brottslingar
rss-massmordarpodden
mannen-utan-spar
obskyr-historia
krigshistoriepodden
harrisons-dramatiska-historia
bedragare
militarhistoriepodden
nu-blir-det-historia
rss-folkets-historia