Extreme Stars At the Edge of Creation [Paperback]

An engaging and generously illustrated account of the lives of stars, from a fascinating perspective.Extreme Stars is a unique book describing the lives of stars from a new perspective, for anyone interested in stars. It examines their amazing extremes and results in a refreshing, up-to-date and engaging overview of stellar evolution, showing how each extreme turns into another under the inexorable twin forces of time and gravity. Ten chapters, generously illustrated throughout, explain the natures of the brightest, the largest, the hottest, the youngest, and so on, ending with a selection of the strangest stars the Universe has to offer.Extreme Stars is a unique book describing the lives of stars from a new perspective, for anyone interested in stars. It examines their amazing extremes and results in a refreshing, up-to-date and engaging overview of stellar evolution, showing how each extreme turns into another under the inexorable twin forces of time and gravity. Ten chapters, generously illustrated throughout, explain the natures of the brightest, the largest, the hottest, the youngest, and so on, ending with a selection of the strangest stars the Universe has to offer.Over the past 200 years, our knowledge of stars has expanded enormously. From seeing myriad dots of different brightnesses, we haved moved on to measure their distances, temperatures, sizes, chemical compositions, and even ages, finding both young and ancient stars that dwarf our Sun and are dwarfed by it. Unique in its approach, Extreme Stars describes the lives of stars from a new perspective by examining their amazing features. The result is a refreshing, up-to-date, and engaging overview of stellar evolution, suitable for everyone interested in viewing or studying the stars. Ten chapters, generously illustrated throughout, explain the natures of the brightest, the largest, the hottest, and the youngest, among other kinds of stars, ending with a selection of the strangest stars the Universels8