The Star

The Star Summary | Detailed Summary

The opening of The Star introduces the main conflict of the story - a crisis of religious faith. We find the narrator, a Jesuit astrophysicist, on a mission in the far reaches of space. Something awful has happened out there that has made him question his Christian beliefs. "I stare at the crucifix that hangs on the cabin wall... and for the first time in my life I wonder if it is no more than an empty symbol."

Yet, at this early stage in the story, we do not know what has caused the Jesuit's despair, and Clarke keeps us guessing right until the end. We do not even learn that the main character is a Jesuit astrophysicist until the third paragraph, by which time we know that he is on a space shuttle carrying a precious cargo of recordings and photographs back to Earth. These records contain evidence that has caused him to question God.

We learn that the crew is also depressed, even though most of them are atheists. The Jesuit spent a great deal of time debating theology with them on the outward journey. In particular, he debated the origins of the universe with Dr Chandler, the ship's doctor, while the two of them watched the stars spin by from the observation deck. Contemplating the beauty of the stars, Dr Chandler says, "Something made it. But how you can believe that something has a special interest in us and our miserable little world - that just beats me."

In his debates with the crew, the Jesuit takes pains to remind them of his impressive scientific credentials. He has published papers in major journals, and indeed the Jesuit order itself has made important contributions to astronomy and geophysics since the eighteenth century. However, he worries that the new information he has learned about a certain 'Phoenix Nebula,' the cloudy remains of an exploded star, will put an end to Jesuit history.

Reaching the Phoenix Nebula, we discover, was the ship's mission. Exploding stars, or novae, are a common event in the universe, and the Jesuit has recorded dozens of them during his career. However, just three or four times in every millennium, a supernova occurs. This massive nova outshines all the suns in the galaxy. The Jesuit notes that in AD 1054, Chinese astronomers recorded such an event, while in 1572 a supernova was observed on Earth that was visible even in daylight.

When they reached the nova, the crew passed through glowing, concentric shells of gas, still expanding from the ancient blast, towards the White Dwarf at the centre. This tiny dense object is smaller than the Earth, but weighs a million times more. It had once been a sun, much like the one at the centre of Earth's solar system.

In a routine check, the crew searches for planets that survived the blast. They find a single world, far from the White Dwarf, at the outer limit of its solar system. Its remoteness saved it from destruction in the supernova.

The planet survived the blast, but it is badly scarred. The Jesuit's ship lands on the planet and the crew make the shocking discovery of something they call the Vault.

A huge pylon marks it over the entrance, reduced to a stump in the blast, but clearly the work of intelligent beings. A huge radioactive pattern also serves as a beacon to lead visitors to the spot. It was clear that an intelligent species that knew it was going to be destroyed in the supernova had erected the monument. They built the Vault to mark their own civilization, and its passing.

It takes the crew a week to drill through the fused rock and unearth the treasures inside. The unknown aliens had had plenty of warning that their sun would explode. They left a huge wealth of information about themselves, everything they wanted to preserve.

The aliens had spaceships that could travel the short distances between the planets of their own solar system, but their technology was not advanced enough to cross the huge ocean of space to the next sun. They had brought their treasures to the furthest planet from the blast, but they could not escape the supernova altogether.

The crew finds the ancient race of aliens were 'disturbingly human', leaving art and sculpture, pictures and records, as well as machines for projecting them. They had graceful cities and musical speech, and the Jesuit is particularly touched by a recorded scene of 'a group of children on a beach of strange blue sand, playing in the waves as children play on Earth.' In the scene, the sun sinks below the waves in a warm sunset, the same sun that would soon destroy them.

The Jesuit and the crew are deeply moved to find this evidence of an advanced culture in a lonely stretch of space. The crew questions the Jesuit: How can the destruction of this beautiful culture be compatible with a merciful God? For them, it confirms the notion that the universe has no architect, no divine justice, no God.

However, the Jesuit stands firm. He believes that God has no need to justify his actions; he can choose to destroy suns and planets at any time, just as he chose to create them.

Later however, comes the ultimate challenge to the Jesuit's faith, the one that has thrown him into a crisis at the beginning of the story. He has calculated the precise date of the supernova, and he has now discovered the year that the brilliant light from the supernova reached the Earth. The exploding star that destroyed the entire race of aliens was the same star that shone over Bethlehem to mark the birth of Jesus Christ.