Island in Space

Island in space

Each star system is an island in space

Our overwhelming impression, even between the spiral arms, is of stars streaming by us – a vast array of exquisitely self-luminous stars, some as flimsy as a soap bubble and so large that they could contain ten thousand Suns or trillion Earths. Others are the size of a small town and a hundred trillion times denser than lead.

Some stars are solitary, like the Sun. Most have companions and their systems are commonly double, two stars orbiting one another. But there is a continuous gradation from triple systems through loose clusters of a few dozen stars to the great globular clusters, resplendent with a million suns. Some double stars are so close that they touch, and starstuff flows between them. Most are separated as Jupiter is from the Sun.

Each star system is a lonely island in space and we grow up in isolation. Image : © Megan Jorgensen (Elena)