A star is a luminous sphere of plasma held together by its own gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Other stars are visible to the naked eye from Earth during the night, appearing as a multitude of fixed luminous points in the sky due to their immense distance from Earth. Historically, the most prominent stars were grouped into constellations and asterisms, and the brightest stars gained proper names. Extensive catalogues of stars have been assembled by astronomers, which provide standardized star designations.
For at least a portion of its life, a star shines due to thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium in its core, releasing energy that traverses the star's interior and then radiates into outer space. Once the hydrogen in the core of a star is nearly exhausted, almost all naturally occurring elements heavier than helium are created by stellar nucleosynthesis during the star's lifetime and, for some stars, by supernova nucleosynthesis when it explodes. Near the end of its life, a star can also contain degenerate matter. Astronomers can determine the mass, age, metallicity (chemical composition), and many other properties of a star by observing its motion through space, luminosity, and spectrum respectively. The total mass of a star is the principal determinant of its evolution and eventual fate. Other characteristics of a star, including diameter and temperature, change over its life, while the star's environment affects its rotation and movement. A plot of the temperature of many stars against their luminosities, known as a Hertzsprung–Russell diagram (H–R diagram), allows the age and evolutionary state of a star to be determined.
"STARS" is a song by Superfly and Tortoise Matsumoto. The first new single from Superfly in nearly a year and her first collaboration since "I Spy I Spy" with JET.
Shiho Ochi of Superfly stated at one point that she always wanted to work with Tortoise Matsumoto of Ulfuls, and when Matsumoto was given the offer to write the theme song for Fuji Television's coverage of the 2012 Summer Olympics, he contacted Ochi to perform a duet with him. The song's theme is "universal love" to match with the global community of the Olympic Games.
In the Oricon's weekly ranking, "STARS" debuted at 15, and on the Japan Hot 100, it peaked at the number 5 spot.
All songs written and composed by Tortoise Matsumoto, arranged by Koichi Tsutaya.
Stars is the fourth album by British-based pop/soul/jazz band Simply Red, released in September 1991. Five singles were released from the album, including the UK top ten hits "Stars" and "For Your Babies". The album was a worldwide success, particularly in the band's home country where it has been certified twelve times platinum and was the best-selling album of the year in the UK for both 1991 and 1992, the first album to be the best-seller in two consecutive years since Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge over Troubled Water in 1970–71. As of February 2014 it is the 14th best-selling album of all time in the UK.
Stars was also the last album to feature member Tim Kellett, who started his own band Olive after touring. It is the only Simply Red album to feature Fritz McIntyre singing lead vocals, on the tracks "Something Got Me Started" and "Wonderland".
It was on the shortlist of nominees for the 1992 Mercury Prize. In 2000 Q placed Stars at number 80 in its list of "The 100 Greatest British Albums Ever".
Zap!, often erroneously referred to as Zap in Space, is a sci-fi webcomic currently hosted on Keenspot. The series began on 2003-07-13. At first it updated twice or sometimes three times a week. Somewhere around February 2007 it switched to updating once a week, every Monday. This seems to correspond roughly with the increased elaborateness of the graphic design. As of January 2009 it is still being updated every Monday on a very regular schedule. The comics are almost universally in color. The comic is co-authored by Chris Layfield and Pascalle Lepas. The webcomic had 557 entries as of November 21, 2011.
The comic was completed September 28, 2014.
Zap! was nominated for the 2006 Web Cartoonist's Choice Award for Outstanding Science Fiction Comic.
The plot takes place in an unspecified future. The Galactic Earth Federation, or G.E.F, has steadily grown and conquered planet after planet. They serve as the villains of the story. The story centers, however, around the captain and crew of the spaceship Excelsior—the only ship in the galaxy that actually picks its captain. As the narrative begins, the ship picks a new captain. This happens to be Zap Vexler, much to the consternation of Excelsior's crew.