The Stars Review Sheet Flashcards
Astronomers measure the distance between stars in what units?
Light years
The closest star to the Sun is:
Proxima Centauri
From the surface of Pluto, our familiar constellations would:
Look exactly the same as from Earth
Radio messages travel at the speed of light, so how long would it take to radio a message to a star that is 100 light years distant?
100 years
From the surface of a planet orbiting a star 1000 light years away, our familiar constellations would:
Be completely unrecognizable
Most of the characteristics of an individual star depend on the star’s:
Mass
The hottest stars are primarily what color?
Blue
Stars look like tiny points of light in the sky because:
They are extremely far away
All of the brightest stars in Earth’s sky are the stars that are closest to the Sun
False
Explain in a sentence or two what the term “light year” means.
A light year is a unit of distance. It is the distance that light, moving at 300,000 km/s can travel in one year
The constellations look the same from Mars as they do from Earth. This means:
The stars are very far away
In a typical spacecraft travelling at about 17 km/s. It would take about 70,000 years to travel to:
The nearest star
The coolest stars appear:
orange
The best example of a red giant star is the star:
Betelgeuse
Where are stars usually born?
In a nebula
Stars like our Sun live about:
10 billion years
What is the Crab Nebula?
The remnant of a supernova explosion
Radio waves travel at the speed of light. If we sent a message to Alpha Centauri, how long would we have to wait before receiving a reply?
8 years
What is the color of stars that have surface temperature of 3000 degrees Celsius?
Red
Astronomers call the type of chart shown here a:
H-R diagram
The line on a H-R diagram where most stars fall is called the:
Main Sequence
Fill in the three circles of the two Venn Diagrams with the words from the list: Red Star, Blue Star
Blue Star - high mass, hot and short life
Red Star - low mass, cool, and long life
Black holes are like cosmic vacuum cleaners that suck everything up.
False
When the Sun runs out of fuel at the end of its lifetime, it will eventually form a :
White Dwarf
Place the words and phrases in the list with their matching words and phrases in the table: Only very massive stars, The Sun, Gravity, Light
only very massive stars - can produce neutron stars and black holes
The Sun - will never become a black hole
Gravity - governs star birth and death
Light - does not move fast enough to escape from a black hole
Which one of the following properties govern the ultimate fate of any star?
Mass
