Thursday, June 26, 2014

Tidbits On Stars and Galaxies

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6/26/2014
 
 
Tidbits On Stars and Galaxies
 
            When you look up at the sky in the night, you'll sometimes see stars. But one of the odd facts about this is, is that you never see the same star twice in a row in the same place on two different nights. Why? This is because the Earth is continually spinning and moving, making it look like each star like its moving, when really we are the one's moving. But, there are always groups of stars that are most likely found in of the Earth's hemispheres. In the Northern hemisphere, you can most likely always find the constellation Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. In the constellation Ursa Minor, is the famous Polaris, or the North Star. Continuing on stars, there are many kinds. One of the most spectacular ones is the kind that the star Sirius is. Sirius is a binary star, which means that it has another star orbiting around it. It's kind of like when a planet is orbiting around a bigger star, yet this is more on a smaller scale.
The star that is orbiting around Sirius is a white dwarf star. White dwarf stars are stars that are in the process of dying. Just like us, stars have a spanned lifetime.
When a star does finally die, it can sometimes create a black hole.  A black hole is when a star implodes on itself. The core of the star implodes, forcing other stars out into the sky. But, the core stays behind, pulling on everything in sight. A black hole's gravitational pull is so strong, that it can overpower even the strongest of stars or planets.                  A supernova, is when a star explodes (not implodes) on itself. When this happens, it reaches far out into space, leaving residues that make that part of the sky colorful. The Crab Nebulae is one of these supernovas, and can be seen through a telescope. All three of the types of stars listed above, are variable stars. All of these variable stars can sometimes form what we call galaxies. Galaxies are stars formed in huge groups. We are in the Milky Way galaxy.
The Milky Way galaxy is one of the three types of galaxies: elliptical, spiral, and irregular. We are in a spiral galaxy. It's humbling to think that all of the stars that we see up in the night sky make up a whole ENTIRE galaxy. All of the constellations, star groups, types of stars, and the death of stars, all make up the place we live in. These constellations and such are not only used for science of course, but they can be used to tell stories of the past. Though people use them for horoscopes in astrology (different from astronomy), even the stars can tell you a story which is not your own, and more fascinating.  Every star has its own story, and when those stories collide with one another, it makes a bigger story, which turns into the story that God had always planned for us and for others…

                                              The story of the universe.








Some interesting links I encourage you to investigate:




Check out the sites the images came from  as well:

The first image taken from this cool site:  http://hubpages.com/hub/AstronomyBeginnersGuideStars-Greensleeves



The fourth image taken from this nerdy site:  http://burro.astr.cwru.edu/stu/advanced/stars_binvar.html

The fifth image taken from a site with enough information to give me a headache:  http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2012/05/10/why-youll-never-escape-from-a/


The seventh image taken from:  http://www.universetoday.com/21563/milky-way/
 

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