A group of space explorers from Earth return from an expedition to a remote star system, where they discovered the remnants of an advanced civilization destroyed when its star went supernova. The group's chief astrophysicist, a Jesuit priest, is suffering from a deep crisis of faith, triggered by some undisclosed event during the journey. The destroyed planet's culture was very similar to Earth's. Recognizing several generations in advance that their star would soon explode, and with no means of interstellar travel to save themselves, the doomed people spent their final years building a vault on the outermost planet in their solar system, whose Pluto-like orbit was distant enough to survive the supernova. In the vault, they placed a complete record of their history, culture, achievements, and philosophy, hoping that it would someday be found so that their existence would not have been in vain. The Earth explorers, particularly the astrophysicist-priest, were deeply moved by these artifacts, and they found themselves identifying closely with the dead race's peaceful, human-like culture and the profound grace they exhibited in the face of their cruel fate. The final paragraph of "The Star" reveals the deepest root of the priest's pain. Determining the exact year of the long-ago supernova and the star system's distance from Earth, he calculated the date the emitted light from the explosion reached Earth, proving that the cataclysm that destroyed the peaceful planet was the same star that heralded the birth of Jesus. The scientist's faith is shaken because of the apparent capriciousness of God:
Adaptations
The story was later dramatized as a Christmas episode of the first revival of The Twilight Zone in 1985. Although the original story ended on a negative note, this version had a more upbeat ending: the scientist reads the Father a poem left by the people of the doomed planet which ends with "grieve for those who go alone, unwise, to die in darkness, and never see the sun." Arthur C. Clarke was given copies of the script and did not contact the studio with any objections.
Related works
James Blish's A Case of Conscience also has a Jesuit priest confronting an alien civilization.
Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow and sequel Children of God feature a Jesuit linguist/priest who has a crisis of faith confronting alien cultures.
Stanisław Lem's Fiasco is also about first contactSETI mission and has a priest as one of prominent secondary characters.
Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer, another work which deals with the intersection of religion and science and features a supernova. Sawyer cited The Star as a major influence on his work.
