Download Star Life Cycle – Web Activity

Star Life Cycle – Web Activity
Astronomy
Name:
Date:
For today’s activity, you will need to visit http://aspire.cosmic-ray.org/Labs/StarLife/starlife_main.html
Read the first page (don’t click on any of the “Table of Contents” items) and click on the arrow in the
bottom right corner when you are finished. Below you will find questions and directions that correspond
with each of the six pages.
Star Life Cycle
1. In the age table, what stage of star life corresponds with “Old Age-Death” of a human?
2. Describe what is in the interstellar medium, including specific names of elements present.
3. How long ago was our sun born in a nebula?
Protostar
4. Click on the animation that shows how a star forms from a nebula. Describe why the core of a
forming star is hot.
5. In the case of stars, equilibrium is the balance between what?
6. The pressure in a star depends on what two things to maintain it?
7. Click on “brown dwarf” and describe the mass, luminosity, and size of a brown dwarf.
8. What type of system is a brown dwarf usually found in?
9. Click on “protostar” and find out how long it takes for a protostar to turn into a star.
Stars
10. Stars spend the majority of their lives fusing ____________ into ______________, and then fusing
Helium into ________________.
11. Click on the interactive lab. Follow the steps on the lab for each of the four types, entering data and
saving your answers. When you have been through all four types, click “display data”. Briefly
summarize that data below:
12. After you read the horrible part about human death, what determines the length of a star’s life?
You do NOT need to choose and enter a Hypothesis into the web quest!
13. Summarize the explanation as to why massive stars have short lives and less massive stars have long
lives.
Stars (page 2)
14. What are the two sections of a star?
15. Detail the five step process of star burning?
16. When does a star enter “old age”?
17. Take the practice quiz and record the correct answers here:
1)
2)
3)
4)
18. Read the paragraph about planetary nebulae. Do you agree/disagree with this statement? Why?
19. Massive stars live very short lives, perhaps only ____________ of years, before they develop dead
__________ cores and explode as a _________________. The core of a dying massive star may form a
______________ star or ___________________.
20. What are the three main fuels a star uses for fusion?
21. Take the Star Quiz (part 1) and record the correct answers here:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
Stars: The beginning of the end
22. Read the information on the page (no need to do the lab) and take the Star Quiz (part 2). Record the
correct answers here:
7)
8)
23. Why does the outer shell of a red giant expand?
24. Click on “Red Giant” and summarize the information here, including what the core and shell do, the
temperature, the size, and equilibrium.
Stars: The End of a Star
25. If a star runs out of fuel and collapses, what wins?
26. What is the mass range of stars that will create planetary nebulae and white dwarfs?
27. What is the mass of the core that makes a white dwarf and how big is the white dwarf?
28. Click on “White Dwarf”. Read the description and explain how the mass of a spoonful of white
dwarf material can weigh several tons. Include the name of that white dwarf matter.
29. Click on “Click here to learn more about how white dwarfs are formed”. There are two pages here.
Click on the yellow arrow go to page two. What is a black dwarf and how does it form?
30. Close the small box. What is the mass range of star cores that turn into a neutron star and what else
happens when a neutron star is created?
31. Click on “Click here….”. How are a basketball and tennis ball a good example of what happens to
create a supernova?
32. Close the small box. Stars that are 10 to 20 solar masses go beyond burning hydrogen and helium
and burn ________________.
33. When carbon burning is complete, a core can ultimately form __________ at its core.
34. Describe IN DETAIL the process that creates a neutron star.
35. Click on the interactive lab. Go through the instructions/steps for all four star types. Click on
“display data” when you are finished. Summarize your data below.