The Sky
Light and Telescopes
Stars 101
The Sun
Stellar Evolution
100
The projection of the stars onto an imaginary globe, seen from the inside out.
What is the celestial sphere?
100
The three functions of a telescope.
What are gather light, provide increased resolution, and magnify the image?
100
The general classification of our star, the Sun.
What is a yellow dwarf?
100
How the Sun generates heat in its core.
What is fusion (of hydrogen into helium)?
100
The material that will eventually contract and form new stars.
What is a (giant) molecular cloud?
200
The measure of how far north or south an object is from the celestial equator.
What is declination?
200
A telescope that uses only lenses.
What is a refractor?
200
A plot of stars by luminosity and spectral class.
What is the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram?
200
The estimated age of the sun.
What is (~ 4.5 - 5) billion years?
200
A nebula that shines due to nearby hot stars energizing gas and causing it to glow.
What is an emission nebula?
300
The point in the sky that is directly over your head.
What is zenith?
300
The bright bands of light created by a hot gas.
What is an emission spectrum?
300
Three of the four broad groupings of stars found on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram.
What are main sequence, white dwarf, giants, supergiants (any three)?
300
The three zones of the sun from the surface going outward.
What are the photosphere, chromosphere and corona?
300
The tiny glowing remnant of a medium-sized star like the Sun after it has used up all its fuel supply.
What is a white dwarf?
400
One of the 88 official regions of the sky.
What is a constellation?
400
The highest energy form of electromagnetic radiation.
What are gamma rays?
400
The technique used to measure the distance to stars by measuring its shift against background stars.
What is stellar parallax?
400
The three layers of the sun from the surface going inward.
What are the convective zone, radiative zone, and core?
400
The rapidly-spinning, ultra-dense remains of a large star that produces frequent, regular bursts of radio energy.
What is a pulsar?
500
It measures how far east and west an object is in the sky using the units hours : minutes : seconds.
What is right ascension?
500
The regions of the spectrum where certain wavelengths of light can make it from space all the way to the ground.
What are atmospheric windows?
500
The spectral classes of stars from hottest and biggest to coolest and smallest.
What is "O B A F G K M"?
500
A large bubble of material thrown off the Sun that can impact Earth's magnetic field and generate aurora and geomagnetic storms.
What is a coronal mass ejection (CME)?
500
A black hole forms from the remains of stars with at least this much mass.
What is 25 times the mass of the Sun (25 solar masses)?
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