The Sun is a rather normal star. It is a little on the heavy side, but there are many stars like it. Without the Sun, life on Earth could not survive. You will learn what makes the sun shine, and how long it will continue to shine. You will see the violent eruptions that arise on the surface of the Sun.
Stars appear only as pinpoints of light in the sky, even through the most powerful telescopes.
However, the stars are often different colors, and by splitting their light into a spectrum we learn that they have different chemical compositions and temperatures. The lifetime of a star depends upon how much mass it has. In any case, the death of a star can be quite a dramatic event. In the most extreme cases it can lead to a supernova explosion and a black hole. We will discuss how black holes are really just as bizarre as they are portrayed to be in science fiction.