This book describes in nontechnical language one of the success stories of modern (twentieth-century) astronomy. It presents us with the physical picture of what constitutes a star, a description of how a star evolves with time, how its shape and brightness change, how it manufactures the chemical elements deep in its interior, what makes it explode... The presentation also includes exotic objects such as supernovae, pulsars, neutron stars and white dwarfs, and of course, black holes. This revised edition brings the discussion up to date with the inclusion of astronomical events like...

The study of presolar meteoritic grains is a new inter-disciplinary field that brings together topics from nuclear physics to astronomy and chemistry. Traditionally, most of the information about the cosmos has been gathered by observing light through telescopes. However, with the recent discovery that some dust grains extracted from primitive meteorites were produced in stellar environments, we now have the opportunity to gather information about stars and our Galaxy from the laboratory analysis of tiny pieces of stardust. Stellar grains represent a unique and fascinating subject of study....