Stars Basics
A large ball of gas that produces its own light.
What is a star?
How bright a star appears from Earth.
What is apparent magnitude?
A cloud of gas and dust in space.
What is a nebula?
A telescope that uses lenses.
What is a refracting telescope?
The galaxy we live in.
What is the Milky Way?
The constellation that contains Polaris.
What is Ursa Minor?
The element that makes up most stars.
What is hydrogen?
The true brightness of a star.
What is absolute magnitude?
A star that changes brightness over time.
What is a variable star?
A telescope that uses mirrors.
What is a reflecting telescope?
A system of two stars orbiting each other.
What is a binary star system?
Polaris is also known by this name.
What is the North Star?
The nearest star to Earth.
What is the Sun?
A unit used to measure distance in space.
What is a light-year?
A variable star that changes due to size changes.
What is a pulsating star?
A telescope that uses radio waves.
What is a radio telescope?
A galaxy with spiral arms.
What is a spiral galaxy?
What changes the position of stars in the sky.
What is Earth’s rotation?
The process that causes stars to produce light.
What are nuclear reactions?
A light-year measures this.
What is distance?
A sudden brightening of a star.
What is a nova?
The study of space and celestial objects.
What is astronomy?
A galaxy with no definite shape.
What is an irregular galaxy?
The number of official constellations.
What is 88?
Stars are mostly made of this and helium.
What is hydrogen?
The astronomer who created the first magnitude system.
Who is Hipparchus?
A massive explosion of a star.
What is a supernova?
A tool used to study light from stars.
What is a spectroscope?
A tightly packed, round group of stars.
What is a globular cluster?
The hemisphere we live in.
What is the Northern Hemisphere?
One way stars can differ besides brightness and color.
What is size?
A general term for measuring a star’s brightness.
What is magnitude?
A region where gravity is so strong nothing escapes.
What is a black hole?
A chart that shows the position of stars.
What is a star map?
loose group of stars.
What is an open cluster?
Light stretched to longer wavelengths is called this.
What is redshift?