Download File - Adopt A Constellation

MRS. HANSON, 5TH GRADE SCIENCE
LINCOLN ELEMENTARY
• Astronomy is the study of the night sky, planets, moons, stars
and galaxies.
• Astronomy is the most ancient of science. It started at least
5,000 years ago.
• Astronomers use telescopes to study objects that are to faint
and small to be seen.
• The brightest “stars” in the night sky are actually the planets Jupiter, Venus and Mars.
• The pattern of stars in the sky seem to rotate through the night sky as the Earth spins (rotates).
• It takes 23 hours and 56 minutes for the star patterns to return to the same place in the sky.
• About 2,000 stars can be seen with the naked eye.
• Different patterns of stars are seen in the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere.
• A telescope is a tool that magnifies distant
objects so they appear larger and closer.
• Galileo was a scientist that was the first person to
use a telescope to look at the night sky.
• Telescopes got stronger and astronomers could see
more details on the planets. Scientists used pictures
taken through telescopes to plan the first moon
landing in 1969.
• They put telescopes in observatories. Observatory –
A building that protects telescopes found on
mountain peaks above dust and pollution.
• In 1990, NASA put into orbit a special telescope
called Hubble Space Telescope. It takes pictures of
planets and other objects in the solar system.
• Stars are a huge sphere of hydrogen and helium that radiates heat and
light. The Sun is a star.
• The heart of a star reaches 28 million degrees Fahrenheit.
A grain of sand this hot could kill someone 90 miles away.
Rigel
• The gas of stars is in a special hot state called plasma, which is
made of atoms stripped of electrons.
• Stars twinkle because they are seen through the Earth’s atmosphere.
• Astronomers is a scientist who studies objects in the universe including
stars, planets, and moons.
• The coolest stars glow reddish (Arcturus), hotter stars are yellow and
white. The hottest are blue-white. (Rigel)
COLOR OF STARS VIDEO - HTTPS://WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/WATCH?V=IURFMD8XDE0
A telescopic view of
Arcturus which is the
fourth brightest star in
the night sky
1. Clumps of gas in a nebula start to shrink into tight balls that will become
stars.
2. The gas spirals as it is pulled inward. Any leftover gas and dust may form
planets around the new star.
3. Deep in its center, the new
star starts making energy, but
it is still hidden by the cloud of
gas.
4. The dust and gas are blown
away and the shinning star can
be seen.
Life Cycle of Star - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzE7VZMT1z8
• Most stars (about 90%) are Main Sequence Stars.
• The hotter they are, the brighter they are.
• The sun is a main sequence star.
• Dwarf stars are relatively small stars, up to 20 times
larger than our sun and up to 20,000 times brighter.
• Yellow dwarfs are small, main sequence stars.
• The Sun is a yellow dwarf.
• A red dwarf is a small, cool, very faint, main sequence
star whose surface temperature is under about 4,000 K.
• Red dwarfs are the most common type of star.
• Giant stars have burned all their hydrogen, and so they burn helium, joining
helium atoms to make carbon.
• A red giant is a relatively old star whose diameter is about 100 times bigger than
it was originally, and had become cooler.
• They are frequently red/orange in color.
• Our sun will eventually become a red giant!
• Stars spend approximately a few thousand to 1 billion years as a red giant.
• A blue giant is a huge, very hot, blue star. It is a post-main sequence star that burns helium
• Supergiant stars eventually collapse and explode as supernovas and become black holes.
• A supergiant is the largest known type of star; some are almost as large as our entire solar system.
• These stars are rare.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bcz4vGvoxQA
• In approximately 5 billion years, the sun will begin
the helium-burning process, turning into a red
giant star.
• When it expands, its outer layers will consume
Mercury and Venus, and reach Earth.
• The changing sun may provide hope to other
planets. (Mars)
• When stars morph into red giants, they change the habitable zones of their system.
The habitable zone is the region where liquid water can exist.
• Because a star remains a red giant for approximately a billion years, it may be possible
for life to arise on bodies in the outer solar system, which will be closer to the sun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPg2toWfHAU
• Galaxies - Giant groups of trillions of
stars are called galaxies.
Types of galaxies:
• Spiral Galaxies are spinning with a
dense core and spiraling arms. They
rotate with the dust and gas which
helps form new stars.
• Irregular galaxies have no shape. They
have formed from the debris of
galaxies that crashed into each other.
• Elliptical galaxies are old, egg-shaped
galaxies. They have mostly long-lived
red stars.
GALAXIESHTTPS://WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/WATCH?V=QAOCQCQGKEE&LIST=PL39_UD5AKSVKL_WJ5BIKRVANCIIUPL3VS&INDEX=20
• Milky Way – One of the billions of galaxies that make up the universe. The sun is
one of the billions of stars in the Milky Way.
• The Milky Way is a large spiral galaxy.
• The Sun and its planets (including Earth) lie in this quiet part of the galaxy, about
half way out from the center.
• The Milky Way rotates once every 200 million years.
• It is made up of stars, dust and gas.
• The sun takes 200 million years to travel around
the Milky Way.
• The sun is just one of the billions of stars on one
arm of the spiral.
• Constellations - A pattern or group of stars in the sky that humans
observe in a pattern and give a name.
• People of ancient time saw the constellations as character or animals in
the sky. They made up stories to explain how the object, animal, or
character came into the night sky
• Earth rotates on its axis, this makes most
constellations appear to rise in the east
and set in the west during the night. .
• Most constellations appear in many
different positions in the sky as the Earth
revolves around the sun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXeEAQtC75g
• Zodiac - constellations that resemble 12 shapes
called the signs of the Zodiac.
• The sun appears to pass in front of during the year
as the Earth orbits the sun.
• The ancient Greeks divided the zodiac into 12 parts,
names after the constellations they saw in each
part. Called signs of the zodiac.
• The 12 constellations of the zodiac are Capricorn,
Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo,
Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius.
http://amazing-space.stsci.edu/tonights_sky/
• Planetarium - A theater with a dome-shaped ceiling
that represents the sky. Planets , stars and galaxies
can be protected.
• There is a projector in the middle of the room .
• The projector shines points of light all over the dome.
The points are the same positions as the stars in the
sky.
• The projected stars make it seem like you are outside
watching the stars.