In Norse mythology’s Ragnarok, what happens to the stars in the sky?

In Norse mythology’s Ragnarok, the stars disappear from the sky.

The disappearance of the stars is part of the cosmic disorder surrounding Ragnarök. The sun and moon are pursued by wolves, the earth is shaken, and the boundaries between the ordered world and its enemies break down. The imagery presents the catastrophe as universal rather than as a conflict limited to the gods.

The source descriptions use poetic language, so translations can differ in their exact wording. Some render the passage as the stars vanishing or falling from heaven. The stable idea is that the familiar celestial order is destroyed during the apocalypse.

This detail is sometimes confused with the sun’s later fate. The sun is swallowed by the wolf Sköll, but a daughter of the sun survives and continues the solar cycle after the world’s renewal. Thus Ragnarök includes both cosmic destruction and signs of eventual restoration.