Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey Episode 8

Episode 8 of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s cosmos “Sisters of the Sun” focuses on the composition and life-cycle of stars. The episode starts of describing how different cultures in history created constellations specifically the Greeks and the Pleiades. Tyson then goes on to give us an overview of the works of Edward Pickering and how he recorded the spectra of multiple stars at once. Tyson also describes the accomplishments of the Harvard Computers specifically how they cataloged spectra. As the episode progressed Tyson moved on to discuss stars themselves and how clouds of interstellar gas form into new stars. He also explains many of the internal mechanics of stars that relate to things such as how a star keeps its size and how stars change into different types of stars. The ending of this episode then goes into possibly the most interesting part of a stars life cycle, death. He goes over novas, supernovas and how these can become pulsars. This episode fits nicely with the section of the curriculum we are in, and works very well to solidify many of the ideas presented in class. In conclusion I would highly recommend this episode to anyone in our class.