Astronomy is as large as the universe that it seeks to discover.  Limiting to star astronomy still leaves a lot of things to cover.  There is more than a single person could study in a lifetime just in our own solar system.  That’s why many people decide to focus their attention on the stars.

Star astronomy begins about 94 million miles from Earth, with our own sun.  Consider what the sun feels like on a hot day, imagine how hot it is up close.  Our own sun contains just over 98% of the total mass in the solar system.  That’s compared to all the planets, moons, space rocks and other material.  The sun could hold over 1.3 million Earths.  The nuclear reaction at the Sun’s core comes from pressure 340 billion times that at sea level on earth and temperatures of over 27,000,000°F.  That would burn a pizza in a second.

Because it’s much closer to Earth than any other star, the sun is studied far more than all the other stars put together.  It’s about 250,000 times closer to Earth than the next known star.  But the interesting part of star astronomy is there’s so much to work with beyond our own solar system.  From the Earth about 5,000 stars, every one in our own Milky Way galaxy, can be seen with the naked eye.  More of the 1×10^22 stars in the universe can be seen through a telescope.  If you’re counting that’s a one followed by 22 zeros.  Hundreds of thousands of stars come into view even with an amateur telescope.  That is amazing!  Larger telescopes can bring over 200 billion stars into view. It’s a project of generations just to count each one.

Star astronomy experts have now proven that many other stars have planets.  They know this first through measuring the wobble caused to stars by planets and other objects orbiting them.  For the first time, in 2008, astronomers took images of distant solar systems.  We are ever closer to finding intelligent life.

Is an intergalactic war in our near future?  That’s doubtful.  But star astronomy and its study of our own Sun and all the stars in the universe will continue.  We might be under observation from one of those distant planets!