Stars are luminous spheres that have been around longer than humans. In fact, it has been said that, “We are a way for the universe to know itself. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can, because the cosmos is also within us. We're made of star stuff.” [1] Just like any other animate object, stars also go through a life cycle. They grow up, live their life, and slowly but surely die out. Stars can live for billions and even trillions of years. The life span of a star depends on how fast or how slow they use up and burn their nuclear fuel. The size of the star also determines the longevity.
Thousands of years ago, ancient people looked up at the night sky and spotted unfamiliar objects in the sky, known as stars. Some people saw the stars as a tool to navigate at night and to keep up with the seasons. Others were completely clueless about what the stars were and why there were up in the sky. This eventually led to curiosity and the beginning of astronomy. The very first astronomers grouped stars into constellations, which basically is connecting the stars to make an imaginary outline of people, object, or animals. This allowed the astronomers to keep track of the movement of the planets and the sun, which allowed them to create the very first accurate calendar to know when it was the right time to harvest and plant.
Stars are born within galaxies and are formed by gas and the collapse of dust clouds, called a nebula. The star’s main goal in life is to reach equilibrium which means that there is not a net overall change in the star. In a stable star, the gas pressure pushing out from the center is equal with the gravity pulling atoms inward to the center – when these...
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...ectron-proton pair into a neutron. The neutrons, however, can often stop the collapse and remain as a neutron star. Neutron stars are fascinating objects because they are the densest objects known. They are only about 10 miles in diameter, yet they are more massive than the Sun. One sugar cube of neutron star material weighs about 100 million tons, which is about as much as a mountain.
The life cycle of a star is lengthy and it’s an endless cycle. Once a star dies, a dozen more are born. Stars may seem unimportant and useless, but if it weren’t for stars, there would be no Sun. No sun means that there would be no source of light, which means plants wouldn’t be able to be grown and that would mean that animals who eat grass or any other kind of plant wouldn’t be able to eat and that would mess up the food chain for every living thing, including humans.
The Big Bang, the alpha of existence for the building blocks of stars, happened approximately fourteen billion years ago. The elements produced by the big bang consisted of hydrogen and helium with trace amounts of lithium. Hydrogen and helium are the essential structure which build stars. Within these early stars, heavier elements were slowly formed through a process known as nucleosynthesis. Nucleosythesis is the process of creating new atomic nuclei from pre-existing nucleons. As the stars expel their contents, be it going supernova, solar winds, or solar explosions, these heavier elements along with other “star stuff” are ejected into the interstellar medium where they will later be recycled into another star. This physical process of galactic recycling is how or solar system's mass came to contain 2% of these heavier elements.
The Sun is a huge, bright sphere that is mostly made up of gas that is about 5 billion years old. The Sun is the closest to the Earth, it is 145 million km distant (this distance is called an Astronomical Unit). The next closest star is 300,000 times further away. There are probably millions of similar stars in the Milky Way galaxy (and even more galaxies in the Universe), but the Sun is the most important to us because it supports life on Earth.
Stars are born and reborn from an explosion of a previous star. The particles and helium are brought together the same way the last star was born. Throughout the life of a star, it manages to avoid collapsing. The gravitational pull from the core of the star has to equal the gravitational pull of the gasses, which form a type of orbit. When this equality is broken, the star can go into several different stages. Some stars that are at least thirty times larger than our sun can form black holes and other kinds of stars.
From Ancient Egypt ,astronomy and astrology play an inextricable part. Everything seems to have something to do with the stars, or at the very least have a close relation that is. The people who made it had the most extraordinary knowledge of the stars and the behavior o...
Carl Sagan then begins going on how the stars go to supernova, planets also And he
Our Sun continuously converts hydrogen into helium and with this process it provides the essentials for life processes. In doing this it controls “our climate, provides light, raises tides, and drives the food chain” (Schaefer 34). Our Sun also has influenced many beliefs now and in the past. History has documented Sun worshipping religions while many current societies use solar calendars (Schaefer 34).
After the death of a star, it sets off a chain of events depending on how big the star is and how it died, as presented if a stars death resulted in a supernova. The remnants of the stars such as dust would accumulate and create a planet this is evident in the creation of the Earth in which the core is mostly made up of iron which may be a remnant of a dead star. This presents the connection of the Big Bang and the creation of the universe. Without the presence of elements there would be nothing to aid in the creation of stars as stars depend on elements such as helium and hydrogen to provide fuel. Without the death of massive stars there would be no oxygen or other elements which helped with the survival of human life. The creation of the sun allows for the creation of life which helps and supports life on Earth. Different components of the sun helps fuel it and provide a stable ball of warmth for Earth until it runs out. Elements are abundant in the universe this is due to the death of stars. The abundance of elements fueled the early forms of life on Earth such as
Stars are born in the interstellar clouds of gas and dust called nebulae that are primarily found in the spiral arms of galaxies. These clouds are composed mainly of hydrogen gas but also contain carbon, oxygen and various other elements, but we will see that the carbon and oxygen play a crucial role in star formation so they get special mention. A nebula by itself is not enough to form a star however, and it requires the assistance of some outside force. A close passing star or a shock wave from a supernova or some other event can have just the needed effect. It is the same idea as having a number of marbles on a trampoline and then rolling a larger ball through the middle of them or around the edges. The marbles will conglomerate around the path of the ball, and as more marbles clump together, still more will be attracted. This is essentially what happens during the formation of a star (Stellar Birth, 2004).
Stars are formed by the gasses in nebulae. In a way, you could say that nebulae are the nurseries for baby stars.
Astronomy is a field where one looks into the great expanse of space and tries to find something that will bring the world a little closer to fully understanding the universe. The road to becoming an astronomer is not easy, as one must get an excellent education, hope that there are actual job openings, and then obtain a steady position. In order to be an astronomer, it is required to have a doctorate’s degree in either astronomy or physics (“Physicists and Astronomers”). After finishing their studies, an astronomer can really only hope to be lucky and secure a position working for the government, a university, or a college (“Astronomer Job Description”). If they somehow find a job, an astronomer’s job varies heavily depending on where they are employed (“Careers in Astronomy”). The first step with nearly every career is experiencing an education that will help them succeed through life.
discover them. Hubble has seen the birth and death of stars. That is how we know how
Shklovskii, Iosif S. Stars: Their Birth, Life, and Death. Moscow: Central Press for Literature in Physics and Mathematics, 1975.
Human fascination with the stars is as ancient as Babylonians and has been suggested to be older than Stonehenge. From “be fruitful and multiply” to “live long and prosper,” the instinct to protect and propagate the species has manifested in religion, art, and the imaginations of countless individuals. As human understanding of space treks out of the fantastical and into the scientific, the realities of traveling through and living in space are becoming clearer. Exploring, investigating, and living in space pose an expansive series of problems. However, the solutions to the problems faced by mankind's desire to reach beyond the horizon, through the night sky, and into the stars are solutions that will help in all areas of life on Earth.
Astronomy is a natural science focusing on the study of celestial objects such as moons, stars, planets, nebulae and galaxies. Astronomy is considered to be one of the oldest natural sciences; early civilizations throughout history such as the Babylonians, Egyptians and Greeks performed methodical observations of the sky. The Babylonians had different astronomical records regarding the position of the moon, sun and stars, on the other hand the Egyptians used astronomy to know the time and afterwards they developed a calendar based on the solar year. The following paper will focus on the ancient Greek astronomy, interestingly the origin of the word astronomy is Greek it comes from two words; astron meaning "star" and nemien refers to "to name". This paper will explain and highlight the methods used, famous figures and the achievements attained during the ancient Greek astronomy era.
One thing us as humans have never been able to fully understand is astronomy. Always having an unexplained mystery, astronomy also has served as a way to keep time and predict the future. The word “astronomy” is defined as the study of heavenly bodies, meaning anything in the sky such as stars, galaxies, comets, planets, nebulae, and so on. Many people, if not everyone, is amazed by the night sky on a clear, moonless night.