All about stars

Answer 1

All stars belong to constellations

Answer 2

It used to be called the 'Luminiferous Aether' (the light bearing -'maybe something'), but a French Guy called Lorentz said it was virtually nothing, then Einstein had to do away with it's last physical property for Special Relativity, (he wasn't happy about that but it wouldn't work otherwise) so it's been called the empty vacuum of space for ages. (with a few clumps of particles of mass in it - rocks, gas etc). Till we went there that is, and found it has all sorts of properties, in fact virtually everything except mass! That confused science enormously so it's now called loads of things; the quantum field, dark energy field, Dirac Sea, Higgs field, dark matter feild, almost anything you like. (Some still say it's an empty vacuum, ..and others that we never landed on the moon). According to the Canterbury Project it's most likely a 'feild' of dark energy from which particles of mass are propagated by disturbances, including other particles moving through it, just like in particle colliders. Most are terrified of going back to the ether (the 'a' is dropped now) as it would challenge relativity, which everything is based on. It would scare many of us to death to drop it. - so don't go spreading this round and worrying too many people! (the same project shows how relativity can work with quantum physics so don't get in a panic yourself). PJ

Answer 3

Stars are gigantic spheres of nucleosynthesis. They start off as hydrogen mainly but gradually fill up with heavier elements as they synthesise them.

Stars form from nebulae, vast clouds of hydrogen. Pockets of gas in the nebulae ball into spheres by gravity. Through tunnelling (relies on the Uncertainty Priciple of quantum theory), hydrogen nuclei fuse to form helium nuclei and this reaction gives of heat. Millions upon millions of these reactions heat up the star. Hydrogen is converted in this way (nucleosynthetically) into helium and helium into carbon.

A star is a 'delicate balance'. The heat from the core pushes outwards and the mass of the star tries to push the outer layers of the star inwards in collapse. Paradoxically, the larger a star the shorter is the time until it exhausts its nuclear 'fuel'. The nucleosynthetic reactions stop at iron. Energy must be addedto produce elements heavier than iron.

The largest stars (much larger than the Sun) explode as supernovae. The supernova energy is enough for the synthesis of the heavier elements, from iron to uranium.

With no nucleosynthetic energy continuing to be generated, the core collapses. Stars can shrink into white dwarves (where collapse is halted by electron degeneracy) or neutron stars (where collapse is halted by neutron degeneracy), or black holes, where collapse cannot be halted if the mass of the post-supernova core is above a certain limit - the Chandrasekhar limit.

There are a couple of videos on YouTube about size and scale in the Universe. They start with the Moon and then show larger and larger and larger objects, from the Sun to Sirius and Aldebaran and the largest star so far known VY Canis Majoris.

The Sun is a star 150 million km from Earth and has a diameter of 1 390 000 km. The nearest star to the Sun is Proxima Centauri and is 4.3 light years from Earth.

Stars can be different colours, depending on their temperatures. Cool stars (from 3500 degrees Celsius) are redder in colour. The hottest stars are blue stars (up to 50 000 degrees Celsius). The Sun is 6000 degrees Celsius on the surface and 15 000 000 degrees Celsius at the centre and is classified as a type G yellow dwarf star.

Stars are classified by their size and colour on the Herzsprung-Russell Diagram.

Stars (in their billions) form huge groups (galaxies) thousands of light years in diameter. Galaxies have several shapes (spiral, barred spiral, elliptical and irregular).

Answer 4

Yes, there are stars between galaxies. When there are collisions or interactions between galaxies, stars can be ripped out of the galaxies. These stars will then wander into space between galaxies. Such stars have been observed with the Hubble Space Telescope.

Answer 5

Answer: Burning balls of gas millions of miles away!

Answer: The stars are similar to our Sun. Very bright objects, with diameters that are often a million kilometers across or more. Our Sun is at a distance of 150 million kilometers, but the closest star (other than the Sun) is at a distance of about 40 million million kilometers (more commonly quoted as 4.3 light-years).

Answer 6

I suppose a better question, is why do stars exist. I look at the universe an engine that is constantly evolving, recycling and re-energizing itself in many ways. The universe is full of energy, gravity and mass so overtime, these elements interact with one another. Even if there is only one single particle any where in the universe, there is a some kind of force acting on it.

These forces act on gaseous clouds of particles, they collect and eventually collapse frrm the gravity. When the particles collapse, heat is generated to the extent that the lighter elements ignite from the shear gravitational force. On a molecular level, I'm sure its much more complicated than my explanation, but this is a basic concept.

Answer 7

stars are glowing balls of hydrogen and made up of hydrogen and hellium

Answer 8

There are no stars between the Earth and the Sun.

Answer 9

No. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun which is approximately 150 million km away. Whereas the Moon is only 384,403 km away from Earth.

Please see the related links.

Answer 10

The space between stars is known as interstellar space, space between planets is known as interplanetary space.