Science Fiction in The Star

For this sections' reading I chose to read The Star by Arthur C. Clarke. What fascinated me the most about this story is that it was in fact science fiction. Sure, there is the very fancy technical science jargon that comes with a lot of science fiction, but in this story it takes a back seat to a very common theme in many stories; personal theological and moral musing. At first it really seems as if there is no need for this story to take place in outer-space. It makes you wonder why the author choose to set this story in the genre of science fiction. It isn't until the end, where you understand what it is that this narrator has seen that you understand why that is. The narrator and their team have come across a planet similar to their own, with very human-like buildings and history, and it has essentially undergone a mass extinction. Whatever organisms were there before are gone. They've been wiped out by a star, their sun, exploding. Given this, I think it is very smart for this story to be one of science-fiction. The concept of coming across a people so similar yet so different to your own who have been completely wiped from the face of their own planet is unimaginable. People tend to ignore their own mortality and the fact that one day we will all be gone and putting someone in a scenario where they are seeing the remnants of that happening to something else must shake them to their core. Getting a similar story across in which someone is loosing their faith due to what they have seen  or experienced isn't impossible to do in other ways, in fact its been done plenty before, but I think the way it was handled in this story is very unique and you almost forget what you are reading is science fiction as it is such a human thing to experience.