Space Unit Flashcards
What is a asterism?
A group of stars or a constellation
What is a constellation?
A grouping of stars, as observed from earth
What is ursa major??
The great bear, the most prominent northern constellation
How many stars does ursa major have?
7 stars
What’s Ursa Minor?
The little bear
What known star does ursa minior have?
Polaris is at the end
What is the Big Dipper?
The group of 7 brightest stars in Ursa Major
What is Little Dipper?
The 7 brightest stars in ursa minior
What is the constellation Orion
The hunter. A constellation laying between Canis major and Rigel
Definition of a star:
A massive collection of gases, held together by its own gravity and emitting huge amounts of energy
What colour do colder stars have?
Red glow
What color does hotter stars have?
Bluer glow
What is brightness measured in?
Luminosity, and it also depends on the distance of the observer.
What is luminosity?
It is the measure of the total amount of energy Star produces per second
What are the two types of magnitude?
Apparent magnitude, absolute magnitude
What is the difference between apparent magnitude and absolute magnitude?
Apparent magnitude is the brightness of a star from how it looks on earth, or the distance of the observer.
Absolute magnitude is the accurate calculated distance and the actual brightness of the star.
What are three examples of famous stars?
Betelgeuse (Orion) , Rigel (Orion) , and Sirius (Canis major)
What is the Hertzsprung Russell diagram?
It is a graph that plots the characteristics of stars. Mainly the luminosity and temperature.
What is the main sequence on the diagram?
The S shape in the middle is called the main sequence. The main sequence shows the stars in the prime of their lives.
How are stars born?
Stars are born in a dark nebula (A nebula is a collection of gases and dust attracted by gravity).
The nebula grows and gravity attracts more and more gas gases and then the temperature warms. Boom a protostar is formed!
What are small stars called?
Dwarfs
What are medium sized stars called?
Intermediate mass/main sequence
What are large stars called?
Giants or supergiants.
What happens to a protostar once the temperature continues to warm up?
Once the temperature reads is 10,000°C nuclear fusion occurs (that’s when the star is born)
Which stars live the longest?
Small mass stars have a very large lifespan. Because it uses up fuel slowly and once it runs out it of gas becomes a intermediate star.
Then once it runs out of fuel again, it becomes a nebula, a dark nebula
Explain supergiants life span?
Supergiant on the other hand are not like small mass star’s, they live fast and die young. When they die they produce massive, massive explosions.
What are supergiant’s explosions called?
Supernovas
What happens to a supergiant after they explode?
Depending on the core of the star, I’ll core that has a rating of 1.4-3 Solar masses, become neutron stars. A cord that has a solar mass rating of three and up becomes black holes.
What is a light year?
Distance light travels in a year
What does a. U. stand for?
Astronomical unit
Define Astronomical unit
The approximate distance between sun and Earth, 15,000,000 km. It is used to calculate distance is with in our solar system.
What is a parallax?
It is the change in position of an object you are from two different locations that are not in line with the object.
What are galaxies? Define
Collections of hundreds of billions of stars planets gas and dust attract one another.
What’s are the four types of galaxies?
Spiral, irregular, elliptical, lenticular
Explain spiral galaxies?
It looks like a spiral pinwheel with arms extending out. The older stars are in the core, the brighter stars are in the arms.
It is a collection of gas and dust
Example of spiral galaxy
Our galaxy the Milky Way
Explain Irregular galaxies
Irregular galaxies have no definite shape. Are composed of lots of gas and dust. And all the stars are mixed in together including young and old stars.
Give an example of an Irregular galaxy
Object M 82
Explain elliptical galaxy and give an example.
The most common type of galaxy. The shape varies from a flattened oval to the spherical. They are composed of mainly old stars and not a lot of gas and dust.
An example would be object and M32.