The field cannot well be seen from within the field”. — Ralph Waldo Emerson On a cloudless, moonless night, free from smog and the glare of city lights, we can see more than 3,000 stars in the skies of Northern Hemisphere — the half of the Earth above the Equator, that imaginary line that divides the Earth into two equal halves. But with the naked eye only, that is, without the help of any telescope.

Similarly, another over 3,000 stars of various denominations can be seen from the Southern Hemisphere, again with the naked eye. This part of the Earth has the great countries of South America, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and other countries and regions, as well as the great Pacific Ocean and Antarctica.

That makes a total of 7,000 stars of various colours, size, brightness and distance from us and from each other, which can be deceptive. It is generally thought that the brighter a star is, the closer it is to us. Nothing could be farther from the truth as far as that perception is concerned. For a star is “known” (actually classified) by its own brightness (called its intrinsic brightness), which is entirely independent of how bright it appears to us.

A star may appear dim but may be 10,000 times brighter than our sun. But because it is very far away (say many hundred light years from us) it appears dim. On the contrary, one that is smaller (or less luminous) but nearer (some 5-10 light years away) may appear bright.

But while most of it is confined to naked eye astronomy, i.e. without the aid of a telescope, the use of a good pair of binoculars over such great distances would not matter much. This instrument is particularly good for the observation of our dear friend, the moon besides some of those lonely stragglers, the naked eye planets.

Above all, a careful study of stars is needed before you can acquire considerable knowledge about them. Fortunately, we do not have to rough it out on our own. Detail on a lot of stars and other celestial inventory is readily available, and I will keep providing it to you from time to time.

There are many people — both contemporary and through history — who toiled on both astronomy and cosmology to make it easy for our understanding of stars. But as we already know, the stars are very complex, both in processes and our ability to understand these processes.

Stars are hot. Very hot. In fact, terribly hot balls of gasses. Think about the sun: just because the sun’s surface temperature is a searing 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit or a little less, it does not tell the whole story. For the temperature ‘way down’ in its interior is stupendous, to say the least: it is a whopping 15,000,000 degrees and more!

If that sounds incredible then let me tell you that there are stars — many of them — whose core temperature is several times more. One particular rogue has been detected (actually calculated) at 25,000,000,000 degrees!

“I do not pretend to understand the universe. It is a great deal bigger than I am”. — Thomas Carlyle The stars tell a story of billions of years of relentless, unceasing struggle between the outward expansion of gigantic nucleic forces as a result of the chaotic fusion of hydrogen atoms into helium in gruesome explosions throwing, spewing the intensely hot gaseous matter outward in a frenzy. However, the intense forces of the all-pervading gravity successfully force matter inward — billions of tons per square inch — not allowing any of it to escape.

The battle of wits continues for billions of years. Our sun has roughed it out for five billion years yet, and is going to go on for yet another at least five billion more! The stars, at that point in time when they come into being — millions of years after the first mote of dust (and gasses) begin to inauspiciously fuse together (coalesce); they become incandescent (self-luminous). Because the gravity and pressure of the “in-falling” matter keeps increasing prodigiously, the end is not in sight.

A star can only begin to ‘light up’ after the pressure of in-coming matter leads to atoms colliding with atoms on a very large scale, and furiously too. Countless trillions of atoms colliding with each other every second (in fact a second is too long and lethargic) create the first atomic spark, and boom the big fire. Just as billions of hydrogen bombs going up together.

Go outdoors at night time and locate ten brilliant, luminous stars in the sky. Find out their names together with the constellation each one resides in.

Remember that it is late summer but too early for the winter sky, actually early autumn. So you would like to make a sustained observation of the sky and see the graceful march of the stars for yourself (in early September). Ask questions!

The writer is a professional astronomer and a former head of PIA Planetaria.  He can be reached at astronomerpreone@hotmail.com