The Star: Summary
The story opens with the unnamed first-person narrator musing that at one time he had believed that his travels in outer space could not alter his faith in God. The reader learns that he is a Jesuit as well as an astrophysicist. He is aboard a starship returning from a scientific mission three thousand light-years from Earth. Something he learned on this mission, as yet unknown to the rest of the scientists and crew, has caused him to question his faith. He reflects regretfully that the data gathered on the mission will soon make the cause of his own doubt—‘‘this ultimate irony’’—known to everyone.
The narrator reflects on the ‘‘private, good-natured, but fundamentally serious war’’ that the largely irreligious crew has waged with him during the long mission. He thinks particularly of the ship’s doctor, Dr. Chandler, who sometimes professes himself willing to believe that ‘‘Something’’ created the infinite vastness of space and everything in it, but cannot accept that a being so powerful could possibly care about ‘‘us and our miserable little world.’’
The narrative goes on to reveal more details about the mission. The ship had been sent to examine the aftermath of a supernova—the explosion of a star, during which it burns with an intensity and a luminosity that may be a billion times that of the Earth’s sun. Following such an explosion, a star becomes a white dwarf, a body of very dense matter. These scientific details are imparted almost incidentally as the first-person narrative continues.
When the ship reaches the solar system surrounding the white dwarf, they are surprised to find that the outermost planet survived the force of the supernova explosion, and that it contains a clearly demarcated vault. Within it they find artifacts recording the accomplishments of a highly advanced civilization. The narrator reports that his colleagues have