What is the main conflict in The Star by Arthur C. Clarke?

Arthur C. Clarke's short story "The Star" appeared in the science fiction magazine Infinity Science Fiction in 1955. It was reprinted in a collection of Clarke's short stories called The Other Side of the Sky in 1958. In his introduction to this collection, Clarke noted that he wrote the story for a contest in the London Observer on the subject "2500 AD." "I realized that I had a theme already to hand.