Delve into the life history, types, and arrangements of stars, as well as how they come to host planetary systems.
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Country: Denmark Series: Anniversaries and Events 1973 Catalog codes: Mi:DK 549, Sn:DK 524, Yt:DK 558, Sg:DK 560, AFA:DK 551, Un:DK 558 Themes: Astronomy | Books | Celestial Bodies | Measuring Instruments | Stars Issued on: 1973-10-18 Size: 24 x 31 mm Colors: Dark violet blue Designers: Czeslaw Slania (E) | Margit Besiakow Format: Stamp Emission: Commemorative Perforation: comb 12¾ Printing: Recess Paper: Fluorescent paper Face value: 2 dkr. – Danish krone Print run: 7,175,000 Score: 11% Accuracy: Very High Description: 400th Anniversary of publication Stella Nova by Tycho Brahe Buy Now: 23 sale offers from US$ 0.02
Country: Hungary Series: Personalities Catalog codes: Mi:HU 2845A, PHu:HU 2860a Variants: Click to see variants Themes: Astronomers | Celestial Bodies | Constellations | Outer Space | Planets Issued on: 1973-02-19 Colors: Dark violet blue Format: Stamp Emission: Commemorative Perforation: comb 12 Printing: Recess Face value: 3 Ft – Hungarian forint Print run: 787,197 Score: 65% Accuracy: Medium Buy Now:
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) astronomer
Country: Hungary Series: Personalities Catalog codes: Mi:HU 2845AZf, Sn:HU 2218, Yt:HU 2289, Sg:HU 2780, AFA:HU 2777, PHu:HU 2860 Variants: Click to see variants Themes: Astronomers | Celestial Bodies | Constellations | Outer Space | Planets Issued on: 1973-02-19 Size: 62 x 45 mm Colors: Dark violet blue Format: Stamp with Attached Label Emission: Commemorative Perforation: comb 12 Printing: Recess Face value: 3 Ft – Hungarian forint Print run: 787,197 Score: 43% Accuracy: Very High Related items: 2 (See) Buy Now: 4 sale offers from US$ 0.15
Country: Hungary Series: Personalities Catalog codes: Mi:HU 2845B, PHu:HU 2860aV Variants: Click to see variants Themes: Astronomers | Celestial Bodies | Constellations | Outer Space | Planets Issued on: 1973-02-19 Colors: Dark violet blue Format: Stamp Emission: Commemorative Perforation: Imperforate Printing: Recess Face value: 3 Ft – Hungarian forint Print run: 8,729 Score: 91% Accuracy: Very Low Buy Now:
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) astronomer
Country: Hungary Series: Personalities Catalog codes: Mi:HU 2845BZf, PHu:HU 2860V Variants: Click to see variants Themes: Astronomers | Celestial Bodies | Constellations | Outer Space | Planets Issued on: 1973-02-19 Colors: Dark violet blue Format: Stamp with Attached Label Emission: Commemorative Perforation: Imperforate Printing: Recess Face value: 3 Ft – Hungarian forint Print run: 8,729 Score: 90% Accuracy: Low Buy Now:
Country: Yugoslavia Series: International Geophysical Year Catalog codes: Mi:YU 869, Sn:YU C58, Yt:YU PA51, Sg:YU 914, SFK:YU 1230 Themes: Celestial Bodies | Globes | International Years | Moon Landing | Outer Space | Satellites Issued on: 1958-10-24 Expiry date: 1962-06-30 Size: 30 x 37 mm Colors: Dark violet blue Designers: Tanasije Krnjajič Printers: ZIN – Institute for the production of banknotes and coins, Belgrade Format: Stamp Emission: Air Post Perforation: comb 12½ Printing: Recess Face value: 300 din. – Yugoslav dinar Print run: 77,054 Score: 68% Accuracy: High Buy Now: 2 sale offers from US$ 6.99
Celestial Body
When something or someone is literally made of stars. Perhaps it’s part of their nature, perhaps they’ve acquired it somehow, but one way or the other they have cosmological bodies within themselves. They range from having a “mere” planet to all of existence within themselves.
The manner in which this trope manifests can vary. Some cases will simply have twinkling stars or nebulas overlaying otherwise normal body parts, while more extreme cases will seem to somehow be made of, or to be living windows into, the cosmos. Stars are the most common celestial object to feature and the likeliest to appear by itself and in the more sedate cases. More spectacular examples may also display nebulas, comets, planets, galaxies, and other dramatic celestial objects and phenomena. The background color will generally be black or deep blue, but more unusual shades such as purple may also manifest.
The owner of the Celestial Body itself can come in many forms, from a seemingly average looking guy, to a marble, to an impossible thing that considers us to be insignificant insects at best. No matter the form, they may also invoke Bigger on the Inside.
Such characters will generally have some connection to the night or the cosmos. The most extreme ones tend to be Reality Warpers/Reality Warping objects of cosmic scale. Regardless of power, they may also have a Stellar Name.
Commonly overlaps with Unmoving Plaid. See Star-Spangled Spandex for what someone with a Celestial Body usually seems to wear.
Not to be confused with angels or gods, whose celestial bodies (if they even have bodies) need not be a Celestial Body, nor should it be confused with a term for naturally occurring objects in space.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica: In Episode 12, after Madoka becomes the goddess “Ultimate Madoka” , she and Homura have a scene where they appear like this.
- Revolutionary Girl Utena: Anthy is seen lying under Akio’s body when he’s drawn this way, which besides tying into a repeating motif in the series related to stars references his name, which literally means “morning star” and hints at his other role in the story.
- Mars has one in Saint Seiya Omega, though it’s only visible on his torso, since the rest of his body is covered in spiky armor or by his flowing red cape.
- Avesta of Black and White: When the Archdemon Khvarenah reveals his more combat ready Astral Body he is shown to be in possession of a cape woven from the fabric of 500 galaxies leading to this effect whenever it is shown.
- Ayakashi Triangle: When corrupted Lippy uses her technique Love Wave, she lifts her skirt to shows a galaxy underneath it
Blogs
- Codex Inversus: Stargazing cows are livestock raised in the Angelic Unison that have blue-black fur studded with faintly glowing pinpricks.
Card Games
- Magic: The Gathering:
- Astral Dragon is covered entirely by a luminous star field, with the brighter connected by constellation lines.
- Celestial Ancient, a birdlike elemental from Ravnica that seems to embody the night sky itself.
- The gods of the plane of Theros and their servants have fields of darkness filled with stars and nebulae covering every part of their bodies that would normally be in shadow (which serves a dual purpose, triune if you add “looking really cool”, in that it serves as visual shorthand for “enchantment creature”). The mortal locals refer to this as being “infused with Nyx”, Nyx being the land of the night sky and the home of the gods which mortals visit through dreams.
Comic Books
- The DCU:
- Teen Titans: Pre-New 52, Solstice was just a girl in flowing golden robes, but after the reboot she gets redesigned as looking sort of like a human-shaped black nebula with bluish Volcanic Veins.
- The Sandman: Overture: The Anthropomorphic Personification of Night appears to have dark blue skin with stars and other cosmic objects shining through it. The story also includes personifications of individual stars, but they are each just one solid glowing color.
- Wonder Woman: Warbringer: Nemesis’ form is a female humanoid made of shadow with flecks of starlight scattered throughout and two strips of bright light in place of eyes.
- A-Force: Singularity, a heroine introduced in 2015 comic, is a living pocket universe whose body and hair are a solid, star-speckled blue.
- Avengers: Back to Basics: In the final issue, the future, cosmically-empowered Kamala has night-dark skin dotted with twinkling stars.
- The Black Vortex: Side-effects of submission to the Black Vortex include all shading being replaced with a starry night sky.
- The Brood Saga: Carol’s transformation into Binary leaves her with glowing, deep-red skin and fiery corona emanating from her skin, likening her to a red giant star.
- The Infinity Gauntlet: For a few pages, but one large spread in particular, Thanos takes on this appearance after defeating Eternity and assuming his position as embodiment of the universe .
- Eternity, the living embodiment of the universe, is an exaggerated example — his body is essentially a humanoid window into the cosmos, bearing only simple facial features superimposed over a dark field of stars, nebulae, planets, and spiral galaxies.
- Shakara: Void is a sentient humanoid dwarf galaxy who is recruited by Valentine to hunt down Shakara.
Fan Works
- Codex Equus: The three Cosmic Sovereigns each appear to be composed of part of a star’s life cycle. Genesis is a nebula, Perpetuity is a healthy star, and Void is a black hole.
- Eigengrau Zwei: Die Welt Ist Grau Geworden: The Celestial inhabitants of the Forge of Fate are living constellations. At least, that’s how Blackbird contextualises them.
- The Kaskade Region: The body of the Space Whale Endram-Odai is made of glowing stellar energy patterned with abstract constellation diagrams.
- Pony POV Series: The two Alicorn Elders have this. Justified, as they’re the personifications of the Existence and Life. In both cases, the stars are implied to to be souls residing inside them. The Father is Heaven and thus looks like the night sky in the shape of a pony, Fauna Luster is the source of all souls and looks like a nebula in the shape of a pony.
- RainbowDoubleDash’s Lunaverse:
- As in canon, Princess Luna’s mane and tail, though it’s a minor spell that she generally leaves on at all times rather than her natural hair.
- Also, the Star Beasts. Most dwell in the heavens, but the Ursas Major and Minor have taken up residence in the Everfree Forest for some reason.
Films — Animation
- Fantasia: At the end of the Pastoral Symphony sequence, it’s not clear whether the night is Nyx’s body or her mantle.
Films — Live-Action
- The Secret Garden (1993): Discussed with the story Mary tells Colin regarding a boy who had a whole universe down his throat, which he says is stupid and impossible.
Literature
- Animorphs: When the Ellimist takes A Form You Are Comfortable With, he appears as a fairly ordinary-looking person except for Pointy Ears and his eyes, which are filled with stars like looking into deep space.
- ConSentiency: The Caleban species makes this particularly literal by being actual stars (as in, “giant gravity-powered fusion reactors with planets around them”) that are sapient.
- Discworld:
- Pyramids: One of the multiple (and simultaneous) mythological explanations of night in Djelibeybi is that the sky goddess arches her (moon-and-star-containing) body over the land.
- Fate’s eyes consist of a starry night sky.
Live-Action TV
- Andromeda has a race of beings known as the Celestial Avatars which are the living sapient embodiment of stars. Trance Gemini is revealed as such, specifically she is the Avatar of the Tarn-Vedra sun. Born to destroy the Spirit of the Abyss.
- Star Trek: Voyager: A species of aliens that exist on a different plane took this shape in Chakotay’s dreams when the ship went through so-called “Chaotic Space” where the laws of physics are different.
Myths & Religion
- Egyptian Mythology: The sky goddess Nut was traditionally depicted with stars across her skin, and may have been the Ur-Example.
- Hindu Mythology:
- One interpretation of Vishnu’s blue color is that he contains the entire universe within himself, and therefore resembles the night sky.
- In one story of Krishna’s incarnation as a Physical God, his human foster-mother Yashoda sees him eat dirt as a toddler, opens his mouth, and sees the entire cosmos and the primordial serpent Shesha within his body.
Music
- Disturbed: The Guy is this in his True Form, as seen in the music video for The Vengeful One.
- Marina Diamandis: Marina has her body painted like this during portions of I am not a robot
- Peter Gabriel, at the very end of the video for “Sledgehammer”, turns into a man made of stars before going outside his door into a star field.
Podcasts
- Cool Kids Table: Void from The Chimera Program arc is a person-shaped black hole, though eventually their friends become able to see stars inside of their being.
Tabletop Games
- Call of Cthulhu: In the campaign The Fungi from Yuggoth, section “Day of the Beast”, when the Sphinx is turned into the Beast (an avatar of Nyarlathotep) its face falls off, revealing a black oval void filled with whirling suns and galaxies.
- Dragonstar features a space dragon that looks like a night sky.
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- Maws of Acamar, avatars of the corpse-star of the same name, look like humanoid starscapes clad in tattered robes.
- Crownbound constellations are roughly humanoid beings made out of swirling blue energy and dotted with stars.
- Mix couatls’ scales and feathers range from deep blues and violets to blacks deeper than the night, interspersed with white spots like stars and red stripes like the rays of the setting sun.
- A pleroma’s body appears as nothing so much as a roughly humanoid portal to a field of stars, nebulas and galaxies, constantly burning bright, flickering out and shining back out of the darkness, again and again and again.
- Black Butterfly, an empyreal lord associated with the night, has pure black skin dotted with white points and wings that resemble sheets of the night sky shaped like butterfly wings.
Video Games
- Bayonetta: The final boss, Jubileus, shows this effect when Bayonetta starts breaking away her Sculpted Physique. This is in contrast to most enemies from Paradiso, who are normally a mess of Gorn and Eyes Do Not Belong There.
- Cookie Clicker: Antimatter Grandmas are grandmother-shaped blobs of starry sky texture.
- Destiny 2 has the Carina Nebula cosmetic for the Graviton Lance pulse rifle, which changes part of the weapon (a copper conductor of some description) into fancy starstuff. It also uses parallax scrolling type effects to create an illusion of depth so that the piping looks almost like a ‘window’ that reveals an extradimensional space “behind” the weapon.
- Diablo: Trag’oul is described as a dragon whose entire body is made from stars, and who bears the world on his spine.
- DragonFable: Isiri’s torso is seemingly made of stars. This is probably to underline her connection with the Empress.
- Fire Emblem Heroes features Ginnungagap, the ruler of the nothingness, where her skin is made of the void of outer space, due to being an Eldritch Abomination that is one with the nothingness itself.
- Fortnite: The “Galaxy” costume, one of the default male outfits, gives the character it’s applied to an indigo-to-violet gradient palette dotted with stars, with tow addition lights orbiting around the head.
- Guild Wars: Factions has the Nahpui Quarter. To become Closer to the Stars, a necessary step in the main plot, the heroes must defeat four celestial spirits who embody this trope.
- Heroes of Might and Magic: In VI: Shades of Darkness, the upgrade of the Shadow Dragon, the Black Dragon, according to their in-game description, have on their wings “intricate patterns of light constantly dissolving, like galaxies being swallowed by the eternal darkness of space.”
- LEGO Dimensions: The Big Bad, Lord Vortech, appears to be a Lego Minifigure made out of an entire galaxy. This also applies to his mooks, who are versions of him without any of his clothing or his face.
- Loop Hero: The Lich Omicron has a void filled with stars inside his ribcage and skull. When killed, the void and stars pour out of him.
- Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime: The constellations fought as bosses at the end of each level have a faint pattern of stars over their robotic bodies.
- Marco & the Galaxy Dragon: Arco’s true form is a black dragon with stars and nebulae contained in both its wings and the miasma surrounding its body, and her Sleep-Mode Size form’s mouth is shown to contain a field of stars at one point. There’s also the Lizard Stone, which has a miniature galaxy swirling within its depths.
- Oddity: The Modern Mind enemy has a glowing ball of energy for a head and stars dotted over its humanoid form.
- Starbound plays with this in regards to the Novakid race. Rather than being full of stars like most examples, they’re made of a star, singular, as in hot, swirling masses of gas and plasma (held together by a magnetic metal brand). To further the theme, old Novakid tend to grow bigger and fatter as their forces grow weaker, and adopt a reddish hue, like a red giant (don’t call them that, though), and literally go supernova when they die (smaller scale, of course), to the point Novakid funerals have to be done on mountaintops, with friends and family staying below.
- Super Mario Galaxy:
- Cosmic Clones resemble Mario and Luigi, but appear to be made of stars.
- Super Mario Galaxy 2: The Cosmic Guide resembles Rosalina (the woman who helped Mario/Luigi on his quest to save both Peach and the entire galaxy from Bowser in the first game), but her body is made of stars. She helps the player complete a certain level only after it is failed too many times. Unfortunately, the Guide thinks that that’s cheating, and as a result once she completes the level for you she will immediately give you a bronze Power Star because of your ineptitude.
- Algalon is one of the constellars, massive humanoids who resemble living constellations and were entrusted to observe Titan-ordered planets. He also drops daggers that look like this.
- Also various celestial mounts, such as the Celestial Steed, Gryphon and Wyvern.
- Balance Druids can also use a glyph that allows them to transform into starry versions of their humanoid forms instead turning into big fat purple owlbears.
- A similar boss appears in Mists of Pandaria; the Astral Cloud Serpent, Elegon. His battlefield even turns players into Human model that follows the same aesthetic.
Visual Novels
- The Gods of the Shinza Bansho Series all have bodies such as these on the inside. While it normally isn’t visible, when they get seriously injured the universal sky can be visible from the wounds.
Webcomics
- Hackbent: Blue Space Ghost’s body seems to be made out of a blue galaxy.
- Homestuck:
- Anyone with First Guardian powers seems to have their entire bodies be full of stars when they use them.
- The Genesis Frogs bred by players of each Sburb session take it further, in that each is literally an entire universe , and have bodies patterned with star fields and galaxies.
- In places where Snowman’s body is in shadow, it’s covered in white stars and small galaxies.
Web Original
- Higherworld OCT: The denizens of the constellation island, the Constels, are animal-like creatures with constellations glowing on their bodies.
Web Video
- Dollightful:
- Nova of the Stock Box series was created with a “Galaxy” theme, the first chosen by fans. Her body is a mix of dark blue and purple, dotted with dozens of stars.
- Nyx, the first official dragon of the Dragon series, has a similar colour palette, with multiple constellations stitched into her wings.
Western Animation
- Ben 10: Celestialsapiens have black bodies resembling space with tiny white stars scattered throughout.
- Danny Phantom: Nocturne, the ghost of sleep, has his entire body except his eyes and face-mask as stars in space.
- The Dragon Prince: Signifying his connection with the heavens, the fallen Startouch Elf, Aaravos, appears to have a pattern resembling a glimmering field of stars across his body.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- The Ursa Major and the Ursa Minor are colossal, translucent bears with stars covering and/or inside their bodies. Notably, while the Ursa Minor is a fairly typical deep blue, the Ursa Major is purple instead.
- Princess Luna and her Superpowered Evil Side Nightmare Moon have ethereal, deep blue manes and tails resembling flowing nebulae filled with stars, symbolizing their magical powers over the night.
- The Tantabus, a nightmare entity created by Luna as a way to punish herself for her acts as Nightmare Moon, starts out as an amorphous cloud of inky blackness dotted with stars. It eventually grows into a towering, unicorn-like shape, but even then it still appears as a faceless, featureless outline containing nothing but darkness and scattered stars.
- Star vs. the Forces of Evil: Omnitraxus Prime, the master of space-time, appropriately has a body made of space, with a visible galaxy and a few planets within.
- Shadow Raiders: The Beast Planet’s generals, due to being constructs of null matter, all have translucent red bodies that seem to be filled with stars and nebulae.
- Tutenstein: Nut’s skin is composed of the night sky, dotted with white stars.
Black Holes
Explore what we know about black holes, the most mysterious objects in the universe, including their types and anatomy.
A movie made from over two decades of data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory shows a star system changing with time.
This image taken shows Arp 107, a celestial object that includes a pair of galaxies in the midst of a collision.
Astronomers have produced a glimpse of the sky as it would appear in gravitational waves, cosmic ripples in space-time generated by orbiting objects.
NGC 3156 is a lenticular galaxy, with two visible threads of dark reddish-brown dust crossing the galaxy’s disk.
This image of HH 211 from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals an outflow from a Class 0 protostar.
A new collection of stunning images highlights data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes.
Called the Wide Field Instrument, this tool will enable astronomers to explore the cosmos
While K2-18 b lies in the habitable zone this does not necessarily mean that the planet can support life.
The swirls of the galaxy IC 1776 stand in splendid isolation in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
When a star strays too close to a black hole, gravitational forces create tides that break the star apart into a stream of gas.
The Aero Club of Southern California has awarded the Howard Hughes Memorial Award to NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
This huge ball of stars – around 100 billion in total – is an elliptical galaxy located some 55 million light-years away.
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