• Question: Is it true that for every person that is born a star dies?

    Asked by asertgi to Steve, Julian, Eoin on 17 Mar 2011.
    • Photo: Eoin Lettice

      Eoin Lettice answered on 16 Mar 2011:

      Hi asertgi,
      Thanks for your question.
      No, in fact there is no relationship between the two things.

      Eoin

    • Photo: Stephen Moss

      Stephen Moss answered on 16 Mar 2011:

      Hi Asertgi

      Although the two things are not connected, it may well be true! There are so many stars dying (and lots being born too), and so many people being born, that it must be quite likely.

    • Photo: Julian Rayner

      Julian Rayner answered on 17 Mar 2011:

      If you mean that a star dies for a person to be born, then NO! Been watching too much Disney.

      If you mean are as many people born as stars die, then that is more interesting. I don’t know the answer, but either you or I could probably work it out pretty easily. The great thing about science is that if you start thinking like one, when you hear a statement like that you don’t think “cool!”, you think “what is the data? is it true?”.

      Quick trawl of the web will tell you – there are about 350,000 or so babies are born every day, and Cornell University says 275 million stars die every day over the whole universe. So stars win, hands down (although I would like to see the real data on the number of stars).

      In researching that, I also discovered that 150,000 people die each day. I know that nearly 3,000 of those will die of malaria – one of the reasons why I work on it.

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