On the other side of the window, the star was looking angry. Its bright yellow colour was turning reddish as it grew and grew, until it was so big that it was almost impossible to see anything else through the window. It seemed to George that the star might explode at any moment. Eric pressed his remote control again and the window immediately moved away from the star, which carried on getting redder and bigger all the time.
'Isn't it amazing!' exclaimed Eric. 'At first the ball shrinks and gives birth to a star, and then the star gets bigger and bigger! And now it is about to explode! Whatever you do, don't take your glasses off.'
George watched the star in fascination. Suddenly, long after it had reached a size no one could have imagined, the most powerful explosion George had ever seen happened just in front of him. The whole star blew up, sending into outer space enormous quantities of light and red-hot gas, including all the new atoms it had created. After the explosion, George saw that all that was left of the star was a beautiful new cloud, full of extraordinary colours and new materials.
'Ooooh-ahhhh!' he said. It was like watching the most incredible firework display.
'You see,' said Eric, 'with time, the colourful cloud you now see will mix with other clouds, ones from far distant stars that have also exploded. As they cool down, all the gases from these clouds will mix together into an even bigger cloud where stars will be born again. Near where these new stars appear, the leftover elements will gather together to become objects of various sizes but not ones big enough to become stars themselves. Some of these objects will become balls and with time, these balls will turn into planets. In real life, it takes a very long time for all this to happen - tens of millions of years!'
'Wow!' George was fascinated.
'But we haven't got that much time to wait, and you need to get home for your supper,' said Eric, going over to Cosmos and pressing a few more keys. 'So let me speed it up a bit. Here we go!'