Image credits (from top): The Eagle Nebula, NASA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA); The Pleiades or Seven Sisters, NASA, ESA and AURA/Caltech; V838 Monocerotis, NASA, the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI) and ESA; The Helix Nebula, NASA, NOAO, ESA, the Hubble Helix Nebula Team, M Meixner (STScI) and T A Rector (NRAO); The Crab Nebula, NASA and STScI.

Video Extracts from How I Wonder What You Are:
The Birth, Life and Death of Stars

by Dr Paul Ruffle
Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, University of Manchester

Video extracts via YouTube from How I Wonder What You Are: The Birth, Life and Death of Stars given at the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology in Liverpool during their Knowledge Lives Everywhere exhibition in May 2011.

How I Wonder 1: Our Galactic Home.
Where we are in the Milky Way galaxy and how it looks from our home on planet Earth.

How I Wonder 2: The Space Between the Stars.
The interstellar medium is not as empty as you might think.

How I Wonder 3: Molecular Clouds.
Tenuous clouds of dust and molecular gas in the interstellar medium are the only place where stars can form.

How I Wonder 4: Star Formation.
Gravity causes molecular clouds to collapse and eventually form stars and planets.

How I Wonder 5: Main Sequence.
The colour of stars is related to their temperature, high mass stars are hot and blue, whereas lower mass stars are cooler and redder.

How I Wonder 6: Stellar Nucleosynthesis.
Stars like our Sun only burn hydrogen into helium, but more massive stars create heavier elements like carbon, oxygen, silicon and iron.

How I Wonder 7: Planetary Nebulae and Supernovae.
At the end of their lives low mass stars become white dwarfs and planetary nebulae, but high mass stars explode as supernovae.