Stars
A star is an extremely hot and bright sphere of gases. Our own Sun is a star. Some scientists estimate that our Sun has burned for 5 billion years, and that it is about halfway through its life cycle.
Stars vary in size, heat and light. Some stars burn 600,000 times as bright as our Sun.
The closest star to Earth beside our Sun is called Alpha Centauri.
Stars come in all colors. There are small stars called White Dwarfs, medium size Yellow Stars like our own Sun, and colossal Red Giants. Scientists believe that the color of a star indicates its age. A Yellow Star is young, a Red Giant is a Yellow Star that has consumed most of its fuel and is starting to lose its cohesion, and a White Dwarf exist near the end of a star’s life cycle when it begins to collapse on itself.
The light of the stars you see at night takes a long time to get to us, sometimes tens of thousands of years! Astronomers say that some of the stars we see burned out a long time ago, and no longer exist! It is estimated that on any given night you can see less than 1/10 of 1% of all stars in our galaxy.
When a star dies, it goes into what is called a Super Nova. The star going nova collapses into a massive explosion. A Super Nova is the brightest thing in the galaxy, giving off the equivalent light of over a million stars.
A star is an extremely hot and bright sphere of gases. Our own Sun is a star. Some scientists estimate that our Sun has burned for 5 billion years, and that it is about halfway through its life cycle.
Stars vary in size, heat and light. Some stars burn 600,000 times as bright as our Sun.
The closest star to Earth beside our Sun is called Alpha Centauri.
Stars come in all colors. There are small stars called White Dwarfs, medium size Yellow Stars like our own Sun, and colossal Red Giants. Scientists believe that the color of a star indicates its age. A Yellow Star is young, a Red Giant is a Yellow Star that has consumed most of its fuel and is starting to lose its cohesion, and a White Dwarf exist near the end of a star’s life cycle when it begins to collapse on itself.
The light of the stars you see at night takes a long time to get to us, sometimes tens of thousands of years! Astronomers say that some of the stars we see burned out a long time ago, and no longer exist! It is estimated that on any given night you can see less than 1/10 of 1% of all stars in our galaxy.
When a star dies, it goes into what is called a Super Nova. The star going nova collapses into a massive explosion. A Super Nova is the brightest thing in the galaxy, giving off the equivalent light of over a million stars.
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