Gravitation, the universal attractive force, acts upon all matter(and radiation) relentlessly. Left to itself, gravity wouldpull everything together, and the Universe would be nothingbut a gigantic black hole. Nature throws almost every bit ofphysics – rotation, magnetic field, heat, quantum effects andso on, at gravity to escape such a fate. In this series of articles,we shall explore systems where the eternal pull of gravity hasbeen held off by one or another such means.