2. A sparkling space object; especially, one in a certain position which is believed in astrology to influence the lives of people: "Considering all of the bad things that have happened to her, she is convinced that she was born under an unlucky star."
3. Someone who is the most important and well-known performer in a movie, play, opera, etc.: "He's the star of this and several other movies and he's even a star in stage plays."
When the famous movie star died, there were those who said that there was a new star in the sky honoring her memory. She really would have liked such an opportunity to star in such a celestial role.
Keep in mind that although a movie star may be beautiful or very handsome, the stars in space have a greater attraction.
The word star is generally a Germanic word, with relatives in German stern; as seen in, Dutch ster, Swedish stjarna, and Danish stjerne.
The modern usage or figurative sense of a person of brilliant reputation or celebrity as a star is first recorded in English in 1824, and was originally used in theatrical language in reference to a leading actor, singer, or other performer. The term film star came into usage in 1941 and movie star appeared in 1919.
2. A luminous globe of gas, mainly hydrogen and helium, which produces its own heat and light by nuclear reactions.
Although some stars may shine for a very long time; even, many billions of years, they are not eternal, and have been found to change in appearance at different stages in their appearances.
3. A body; such as, the sun, that produces energy by means of nuclear reactions taking place within it.The star is held in a stable state by balancing the outward radiation pressure by the inward gravitational force.
2. An object less massive than a star, but heavier than a planet.
Brown dwarfs do not have enough mass to ignite nuclear reactions at their centers, but shine by heat released during their contraction from a gas cloud.
Some astronomers believe that vast numbers of brown dwarfs exist throughout the galaxy, but because of the difficulty in detecting them, none of them were detected until 1995, when U.S. astronomers discovered a brown dwarf, in the constellation Lepus (Hare).
2. A system containing two or more stars.
In a true double, the stars are physically close to each other; in an optical double, they lie in approximately the same direction from the earth and so appear close to each other, but are actually far apart.
2. A star near the end of its lifetime when most of its fuel has been used up.
This period of the star's existence is characterized by loss of mass from its surface in the form of a stellar wind or the ejection of gas off the surface of a star.
Many different types of stars, including our sun, have stellar winds; however, a star's wind is strongest near the end of its existence when it has consumed most of its fuel.
The chandrasekhar limit is the upper limit for the mass of a white dwarf star beyond which the star collapses to a neutron star or a black hole. A star having a mass above this limit will continue to collapse to form a neutron star.
Its name derives from the fact that the object is so condensed that most of its material is in the form of neutrons.
Named after Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910-1995), a U.S. astrophysicist.
Neutron stars are estimated to be so condensed that a fragment the size of a sugar cube would weigh as much as all the people on the earth put together.
The period of particular examples does show changes, both abrupt and slow. Such stars are commonly found in globular clusters.
The stars characteristically have rapid rotation and throw off much material in stellar winds.
2. Any of a class of very young stars having a mass of the same order as that of the sun.So called after a prototype identified in a bright region of gas and dust known as the Hind’s variable nebula, the T Tauri stars are characterized by erratic changes in brightness.
They represent an early stage in stellar evolution, having only recently been formed by the rapid gravitational condensation of interstellar gas and dust.
These young stars are relatively unstable, though contracting more slowly than before, and will remain in that condition until their interior temperatures become high enough to support thermonuclear reactions for energy generation.
More than 500 T Tauri stars have so far been observed. The sun is thought to have gone through the T Tauri stage in its beginning.
2. A star whose luminous output varies significantly with time.
Such variation may be regular; that is, eclipsing variable stars, or irregular, as with flare stars.
In addition, the variation can be intrinsic, because of changes within the star itself, or extrinsic, as the result of the interaction of one star with another.
Most Wolf-Rayet stars have companions in binary systems.
"The Sun does not move", wrote Leonardo da Vinci in 1495
Well, everything in the Cosmos moves, including the sun, the earth and the Star Signs of the Zodiac. The Signs of the Zodiac were first mapped by the ancient Babylonians about 3,000 years ago when, indeed, there were 12 Star Signs.
Movement on the Cosmic time-scale is very slow compared with the time-scale of a human life. The Star Signs are slipping by a small amount each year, so that there are now 13 Signs in the Zodiac.
The Sign of Ophiuchus (30 November-17 December) moved into the Zodiac over 1,000 years ago. Most astrologers continued to use the traditional 12 Signs of the Zodiac because they were unaware of star movements. That practice has continued to the present day.
To illustrate just how slowly the Cosmic clock advances: the Age of Pisces replaced the Age of Aries about 1,400 years ago, and the much-heralded Age of Aquarius will not be here for another 600 years!
The New Signs of the Zodiac
- The New Pisces: First Sign of the Zodiac: 12 March to 18 April.
- The New Aries: Second Sign of the Zodiac: 19 April to 13 May.
- The New Taurus: Third Sign of the Zodiac: 14 May to 20 June.
- The New Gemini: Fourth Sign of the Zodiac: 21 June to 19 July.
- The New Cancer: Fifth Sign of the Zodiac: 20 July to 19 August.
- The New Leo: Sixth Sign of the Zodiac: 20 August to 15 September.
- The New Virgo: Seventh Sign of the Zodiac: 16 September to 30 October.
- The New Libra: Eighth Sign of the Zodiac: 31 October to 22 November.
- The New Scorpio: Ninth Sign of the Zodiac: 23 to 29 November.
- The New Ophiuchus: Tenth Sign of the Zodiac: 30 November to 17 December.
- The New Sagittarius: Eleventh Sign of the Zodiac: 18 December to 18 January.
- The New Capricorn: Twelfth Sign of the Zodiac: 19 January to 15 February.
- The New Aquarius: Thirteenth Sign of the Zodiac: 16 February to 11 March.