Five-pointed star

little glowing dots are scattered across the night sky. They are known as stars. There are several billion stars in our galaxy, but only a few are seen with the naked eye. Stars are by definition, large exploding balls of gas made up of mostly hydrogen and helium. The two most unstable elements on the periodic table. The largest star in our galaxy is the sun. It’s the largest star and one of the few stars that are going through a star wide nuclear reaction. The reason the sun has yet to fully…

helium, and lithium atoms. “The temperature on the surface of the Sun is approximately six thousand degrees Celsius. While at its core, it is about a million degrees Celsius” (Solarsystem.nasa.gov,2013). The Sun, just like all other stars in the galaxy, is also a star, but it differs from the rest due to the fact that the distance of the Sun from the Earth is less than a light year away…

different types of ways planetary systems are discovered and the different ones that have already been discovered. Extrasolar planets are defined as planets rotating around other stars- or remnants of stars. This is comparable to our planet rotating around the Sun. We have known for centuries that these other stars existed. Despite this, it wasn’t until the 1990’s that the first extrasolar planets were discovered (Bennett et al, 2016) In order to discover the planets, we must have ways of…

nebula looks like a donut-like ring wrapped around the middle of a football shaped cloud of glowing gas. It’s about one light year across and the glowing light the Ring Nebula produces is not coming from the planets but rather from the hot central star ionizes atoms in the gas forming intense ultraviolent light. As seen through the telescope, the reddish color of the outer ring is coming from the nitrogen and sulfur, the cyan color of the inner rings is coming from the glow of the hydrogen, and…

collapsing star, these are formed from very intense explosions in distant galaxies. GRBs are the brightest known electromagnetic events in the universe. They can last just a few milliseconds, or hours. The burst is often followed by an afterglow, which is emitted at longer wavelengths. We have been able to learn a lot of what we know about GRBs from afterglow. We can measure how far away the galaxy that the GRB came from is by the afterglow. GRB’s are commonly formed when a high energy star…

Omega Centauri and Tarantula Nebula As opposed to the more short lived and less dense colonies of young stars that group up to create open clusters, globular clusters exist as far greater, spherical collections of aged stars that contain many low mass stars, sometimes numbering among the thousands. Globular clusters are more commonly found among a galaxy’s centre where the vast majority of stars are. It is thought that globular clusters arise from large gas clouds early in the creation of our…

slowly move (Seeds 20). This then leads to a different night sky. For example, 4,800 years ago Egyptians recorded that the star Thuban (alpha Draconis) was close to the north celestial pole. Currently, Polaris is the closest star to the pole and by 2100 Polaris will be the closest it has ever been to the pole. It is projected that in 12,000 years the pole will be within 5° of the star Vega (alpha Lyrae) (Seeds 20). Over time, the night sky has…

Ever wanted to know more about nebulae or galaxies? A nebula is a cloud of interstellar dust, stars, and gas (usually hydrogen and helium). A nebula is less dense than a vacuum and mass less than a few kilograms although it is usually the size of the earth or bigger. A galaxy is gravitationally pulled system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust and dark matter. Galaxies range in size in lightyears. Galaxies, they are what holds our solar system and many, many more. We may not be…

modern day Star of David is a primary Jewish symbol made up of two interlocking triangles with six points ( hexagram ). The Star of David is also on the flag of Israel; today it may seem like a harmless symbol of religion, but in 1933 this symbol was the difference between life and death. Millions of Jews were killed simply because of their beliefs. Six million men, women and children all sentenced to death. Children above the age of 6 were forced to sew a yellow patch shaped like the Star Of…

Blake Smith Mr. Engstrom Physics May 8, 2017 Eta Carinae The Eta Carinae, previously known as Eta Argus, has a luminosity five million times greater than the suns. The Eta Carinae has two stars and for examples we will name them η Car 1 and η Car 2. η Car 1 has a mass of about ~100 to 200 solar masses, which equals about 1.99 × 1030 in kilograms. η Car 1 also has a 60 to 800 solar radius, which is 6.957 00 × 108 meters. η Car 1 has a 5,000,000 Luminosity. η Car 1 has a temperature of 9,400…