Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 I had learned from our email exchanges that I would be studying red supergiants. Red supergiants are massive stars with at least eight times as much mass as our own sun. Because of their large masses, they've sped through their stellar lives at breakneck speed, taking just ten million years to transform from their newborn state to their current state. #2 The most fundamental property of a telescope is its mirror size, and the largest mirrors have been used to make the clearest images of distant objects. The most advanced telescopes are built in the high, dry, remote places of the world. #3 I was excited to visit a professional observatory. I had a mental image of a big telescope perched on a rock outcropping, but that was about it. I didn't think about the details of where we would sleep or what we would eat. #4 I had been enraptured by space since I was a child. In 1986, when Halley's Comet made its most recent close flyby of the earth, I decided I wanted to be an astronomer. My brother was already into astronomy, and he was patient with me.