Download Name: Period : ______ The Universe – Life and Death of a Star How

Name: ______________________________________________________ Period : _____________
The Universe – Life and Death of a Star
1. How many stars are in our galaxy?
2. “The Pillars of Creation are a stellar ____________________. New stars are in the process of being ______________
in the central regions.”
3. The Pillars are towering clouds of _________________ _________________________.
4. What element is the key component in stars?
5. What is the force that pulls stars together?
6. How many stars can be made by contracting nebula clouds?
7. How much larger than our solar system was the cloud that formed our Sun?
8. What is formed when gravity compresses the center of a gas cloud to a scorching 2 million degrees?
9. What is the process in the center of stars where small atoms become big atoms?
10. If you’ve got __________________, you’ve got a _________________.
11. What is the force that works against gravity to keep the star from collapsing?
12. What is the phase where a star is in a state of equilibrium between gravity and pressure?
13. How hot something is, is related to the ______________of the light that it emits.
14. Stars hotter than the Sun are ________________, and stars cooler than the Sun are _____________.
15. Red dwarf stars can have masses that are ___________ to ____________ that of the Sun, surface temperatures cooler
than ___________ degrees F, and are the most _________________ type of star.
16. Why don’t we see red dwarves in the night sky?
17. Blue main sequence stars have surface temperatures of ____________________ degrees F, can be _______ times
more massive than the Sun, and _____________________ times more luminous. (luminous = how much light a star
emits)
18. More massive stars live much _____________________ lives than less massive stars.
19. A star 10 times as massive as our Sun might only live _____________ as long.
20. When a Sun-like star runs out of Hydrogen to fuse, what element will it start to fuse next?
21. What superheats the core of the Sun-like star to allow it to start fusing heavier elements?
Name: ______________________________________________________ Period : _____________
The Universe – Life and Death of a Star
22. What does all that extra heat cause the Sun-like star to do?
23. When a Sun-like star begins to eject its outer layers of gas in “cosmic burps” it will send shells of gas illuminated by
the hot central star and that will cause the __________________ nebula phenomenon.
24. When a star cools, it can become a bizarre stellar remnant known as a ____________________.
25. How much would a teaspoon of the material of this stellar remnant weigh?
26. While our Sun is a cosmic loner, more than half of all stars are part of _______________________.
27. When a white dwarf pulls in enough material from its companion star and explodes, it is known as a Type 1-A
_________________________.
28. Although a supernova is very bright, the visible light is only _________________ of the total energy.
29. Type 2 supernovae are caused by the collapse of a giant star’s _________________ core.
30. Supernovas are the source of the ____________________ elements of the universe.
31. Humans are essentially made of what?
32. Even more small and dense than a white dwarf is a _______________________ ____.
33. How much would one teaspoon of this object weigh?
34. When we see the beam of the neutron star “lighthouse” it is called a _____________________.
35. An object even denser than a neutron star is called a ___________________________.
36. Do black holes suck?
37. Normal supernovae come from stars that are _________________ bigger than the Sun.
38. Regions where hundreds of thousands or even millions of stars are clouded together by gravity are called
______________________________________.
39. What are the young, large, blue stars seen in globular clusters?
40. Celestial objects that are not quite planets, not quite stars are called ______________________ dwarfs.
41. Brown dwarfs do not have enough ___________________ to sustain nuclear fusion.
42. Approximately how many brown dwarves have been found?