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Stars Webquest

Page history last edited by coylem@... 15 years, 5 months ago

 

 

The Life Cycle of Stars

 

 

 

 

 

Purpose:

 

 

1) In this webquest, we will investigate the process of nuclear fusion explained by Einstein's famous  equation E = MC and learn how mass in the form of hydrogen atoms is converted to helium and causes a release of energy that makes stars shine.

 

 

2)We will begin to understand the forces involved in stars that maintain this nuclear reaction and how these forces change as the star ages.

 

 

3) We will explore the stages stars progress through from birth to death and how the death of a star depends on its initial mass.

 

 

4) We will interpret Hertzsprung Russell diagrams and learn how they can be used to classify the life cycle stage of a star by its luminosity, temperature, magnitude, and spectral class.

 

 

5) Finally, we will discover how infrared, x-ray, and gamma ray telescopes are being used to detect the life cycle stages of stars.

 


 

 

Task #1

 

1) You will begin your webquest by learning how to identify stars by their magnitude, color, and temperature, and spectral class. 

Click Stars: Lights in The Sky and write out the answers to the following questions on a sheet of paper to be turned in.

  • Name the brightest star in the known universe.
  • What is its magnitude? 
  • Are the brightest stars low magnitude or high? 
  • How much does the brightness of a star change with each change in magnitude of one? 

 

Do a search on the internet for "brightest stars" and make a top 10 list on your paper of the names of the 10 brightest stars in the known universe and their magnitude. 

 

Finally, design a colored diagram on your paper that displays the colors of the hottest stars on the left to the coolest stars on the right. 

Stars are grouped into spectral classes based on a range of temperatures they fall into.

Label the spectral classes (O, B, A, F, G, K, M) appropriately under each star color in your diagram. 

 

To complete Task #1

come up with a clever sentence, phrase or other mnemonic device (the first letter of each word in your phrase is one spectral class letter) to help you remember the

order of the spectral classes and write it under your diagram on your paper. 

 

Answer the following  questions on your paper.

  • What color is the coolest star? 
  • What color is our sun? 
  • What spectral class of stars is the hottest? 
  • What spectral class of stars is the coolest? 
  • What spectral class is our sun?

 

How is luminosity different than magnitude?  

-luminosity is a measure of how much energy a star radiates in a specific time period

-magnitude is a measure of how bright a star is, apparent (from your point of view) or absolute (imagine looking at a line-up of stars like on crime shows on tv)


 

Task #2:  Continue to read on to the section: A Nuclear Furnace on the same webpage. The animation there shows how stars fuse the deuterium and tritium (both are isotopes of hydrogen) to form helium.  Recreate this reaction on your construction paper using colored pencils or create a 3D model of the equation using styrofoam balls.

 

Now travel to ExploraTour and learn How to Build a Star.  Use the forward/back small buttons at the top of the page to navigate around the tour.  Answer the following questions on your paper.

  • How far away is the sun from earth?
  • What two gases are stars made out of?  Which gas is the "fuel?"
  • How hot is the sun?
  • What is the difference between nuclear fusion and nuclear fission?
  • How much mass completely converted into energy would be needed to fuel the US for one month?
  • Approximately what temperature is required for nuclear reactions to begin in a star?
  • What is a gamma ray?

 


 

Task #3: Go to the animation of the Lifecycle of a Star.  Click on each stage to learn more about the "life" stars and massive stars.  Also see and read about Hubble Space Telescope pictures of a developing galactic nebula in our Milky Way Galaxy called NGC 3603.

 

  • Where are stars "born?"
  • What are the two possible final stages for a massive star?
  • What is the name of the first stage or the "baby" stage of both sizes of stars?
  • Our sun is a main-sequence star, describe what that means?

(*white dwarfs eventually burn out completely and become black dwarfs)

 


 

Task #4: Being that stars are quite more massive than most planet sized objects, the gravitational pull on objects close to stars is astronomically large. Find out Your Weight On Other Worlds on at least 5 different types of stars and/or planets.

 


 

Task #5: Now check out the All Star Line Up and profile one of the 34 stars on this page. Select one star and write up a brief profile from the website.

 


 

 

Task #6:

 

The life cycle of stars continues.......All stars eventually become Red Giants or Super Giants.

As the main sequence star glows, hydrogen in its core is converted into helium by nuclear fusion

 

When the hydrogen supply in the core begins to run out, and the star is no longer generating heat by nuclear fusion, the core becomes unstable and contracts.

 

The outer shell of the star, which is still mostly hydrogen, starts to expand. As it expands, it cools and glows red

The star has now reached the red giant phase.

It is red because it is cooler than it was in the main sequence star stage and it is a giant because the outer shell has expanded outward.

 

In the core of the new red giant star, helium fusion begins as helium fuses into the element carbon this tiem.  All stars evolve the same way up to the red giant phase. 

The amount of mass a star has determines which life cycle path it will take ...........Read more about Red Giants.

 

  • If we are to survive on Earth, approximately how many years do we have to find a new home?

 


 

Task #7: 

 

See animation of a Supernova explosion and photographs of actual supernova detected by emitted X-rays. At this point, stars at least 5X more massive than our Sun that have gone supernova will either die as a neutron star or a black hole. 

 

Continue onto this new page More Questions About Supernovas and answer:

  • What causes a star to blow up?

 

 

Now, you're almost done!

 

Make a "poster" display of the Life Cycle of Stars.  Label and color the star types and progression correctly for full credit.   The format is your choice.

One neat idea you might want to try is to use crayon to design this life cycle diagram on your white poster board and then color over all of it in black crayon. If you can remember where objects in your diagram are, etch off the black crayon with a penny or other object to expose the diagram in color underneath.

 


 

OPTIONAL

 

Task #8:  Time for some fun as a reward. Play the Falling Stars Applet Game and destroy those falling stars.  Email me the game webpage with the score you earned on it.  

 

*game will not play on school computers, have fun with this but have fun at home!


 

OPTIONAL

 

Task #9:  Go to The Space Place and play the Black Hole Board game. Get a group together, print out the color game board and adventure cards, bring the game to school, and have all members of your gaming group see me for extra credit.

 


EXTRA CREDIT

 

Task #10:  Here's a chance to model your own black hole. 

Go to Nasa's Life Cycle of Stars Curriculum packet.   Go to the activity Model a Black Hole and follow all directions there. Bring in your model to share for extra credit points. You may also do any of the other activities there for extra credit. See me about activities or projects you paln to do.

 


 

FINAL TASK

 

When you are finished go to Edu 2.0, sign in, go to learn, assessment/assignments, and take the Stars Quiz (do this in class)

*in addition please take the Webquest Survey to share your opinions!

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