Transcript: A human lifetime is a blink of an eye compared to the age of the stars which can be hundreds of millions or billions of years. So how is it possible for astronomers to understand the life process of a star, to see their birth, death, and life? Consider an analogy of an intelligent ant living in a forest who lives a very short time but observes the diversity of nature. For instance, there are tall trees and short trees, saplings, fallen logs. Some of the falling logs have been helped by insects to decay back into Earth itself. Could a short living intelligent ant deduce the life cycle of the forest from sapling up to tall tree, to fallen log, and then back to Earth by observations over a short period of time? This is the situation astronomers find themselves in.