One thing I have heard from what I would call
responsible experts is that our Sun is your average star. How do
they know this? It's sort of the way we can walk in a crowd of
total strangers and have a general idea of the nature of the
people around us. Some are babies in strollers and we know this
because we have seen babies before and know what the stages of
human life look like.

	By the same token, we know what older people look like
and that's kind of what astronomers do when they see various
stars and, in some cases, compare their appearance over time.

	There are different colors of light given off by stars
of different temperatures which lets us know that some stars are
burning through their hydrogen much faster than others. They
tend to be blue, ultraviolette or even X and Gamma-ray stars.

	Our Sun is thought to be middle-aged so it has about as
long to shine as it has been shining and it is said to be a
yellow-white color which means it is the color that most stars
are.

	You've probably heard the term "supernova" before which
describes a star that runs out of its primary fuel and explodes
in a spectacular event that one sure hopes to be far away from
when it happens.

	There is speculation that the Star of Bethlehem may have
been a supernova and astronomers have observed a few of these in
modern times. The light from such an event may be visible to
observers for weeks or months but when you think of something
that was more or less stable for billions of years, that's still
a flash by comparison.

	Anyway, it is thought that our Sun is too small to go
supernova and that it's fate is more likely to become what is
called a "red giant."

	It will expand and gobble up the whole Solar System and
it is highly unlikely anybody will be alive to see it because it
will probably have long ago made Earth uninhabitable if humans
don't beat nature to the punch.

	There are some things we as amateur radio enthusiasts
can always be on the lookout for.

	There are, of course, Solar flares and all those
familiar events we talk about plus there is thought to have been
at least one supernova a few years ago that temporarily ionized
the night side ionosphere making it briefly like daytime
propagation. I think this occurred sometime in the nineties or
was it the eighties? I don't remember but early one morning in
North America, 80-meters suddenly went to pot but higher
frequencies came to life for a while.

	Then, of course there are meteors so you never know what
might happen tonight.

	You can sometimes hear Jupiter when it is visible from
Earth. I've never heard it yet, but I did hear a recording of
what it sounds like and it is like a bowl of Rice Crispies. I
think there is too much QRM from power lines and computers
around my QTH but I give it a try from time to time. Listen
around 15 meters and up to 25 or so MHZ.

	Anyway, with radio astronomy, we can see the stars as
well as anybody.

73

Martin WB5AGZ