Lecture 33: The Deaths of Stars

Which stars are the most hospitable for life? This lecture examines the factors affecting the habitability of stars, with a goal of understanding where we should search for life-bearing planets. We will do this by generalizing the idea of a Habitable Zone developed for the Sun ba ...  Show more

What stars are near the Sun? Now that we have some idea of what we are looking for - rocky planets in the habitable zones of low-mass main-sequence stars - what are the prospects near the Sun? This lecture examines the hunting ground for planets, the nearby stars that make up the ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life cycle of stars. In his poem Bright Star John Keats wrote, "Bright Star, would I were steadfast as thou art". For Keats the stars were symbols of eternity- they were beautiful and ordered and unchanging - but modern astronomy tells a very d ...  Show more

Are we alone in the Universe? This lecture explores the question of how we might go about finding life on planets around other stars. Rather than talking about speculative ideas, like the Drake Equation or SETI, I am instead taking the approach of posing it as a problem of what t ...  Show more

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 plane ...  Show more

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 plane ...  Show more