Stars and Temperature
Arrange from coolest to hottest: Barnard’s Star, Sun, Altair, and Achernar.
What is Barnard’s Star → Sun → Altair → Achernar?
Based on travel times to the Moon and Pluto, this is a reasonable estimate for a trip from Earth to Mars.
What is about six months?
A region of gas, dust, and billions of stars arranged in spiral arms is called this.
What is a galaxy?
This space telescope provided new data about the universe that scientists couldn’t gather before.
What is the Hubble Space Telescope?
All stars, including our Sun, are part of these massive systems made of billions of stars, gas, and dust.
What are galaxies?
When a star’s intrinsic brightness changes, this property does NOT change.
What is the distance from the star to Earth?
If the Sun were the size of a small exercise ball and Jupiter a golf ball, Earth would be about this small.
What is the size of a pea?
The farther a planet is from the Sun, its orbital speed is generally this.
What is slower (lower orbital velocity)?
The best way to measure radiation from solar flares reaching Earth’s atmosphere is to use this tool.
What is a satellite?
Galaxies are not randomly scattered; they are organized into larger structures called these.
What are galaxy groups or galaxy clusters?
These properties are most useful when classifying a newly discovered star
What are apparent magnitude, temperature, absolute brightness, and size?
Scientists use this unit to measure space distances because distances in space are extremely large.
What is a light-year?
Comets are mainly made of this, while the Sun is made mostly of this.
What are ice and dust for comets, and gas for the Sun?
Scientists measure distances in space by sending out light and timing how long it takes for the light to do this.
What is bounce back (reflect) from an object?
A star that is hundreds of times larger than the Sun but relatively cool in temperature is classified as this type of star.
What is a giant star (or red giant)?
Scientists learned from variable stars that new discoveries are made by doing this.
What is building on the work of other scientists?
A star located in the Andromeda Galaxy would take this kind of time for its light to reach Earth compared to objects in our solar system.
What is the longest time?
This object would take the shortest time for light to travel to and from Earth: a nearby planet, a distant star, or a galaxy.
What is a planet?
Observing the surface of the Sun during a flare would give information about this.
What is solar activity on the Sun?
A star that is extremely hot but appears dim is most likely this compared to the Sun.
What is much smaller in size?
A blue star gives off more energy and appears brighter than a red star of the same size. What does this tell us about the blue star compared to the red star?
What is it is hotter?
Clue: When astronomers observe a star that is farther away than another star, they are actually seeing it as it looked at an ______ time in the past.
What is an earlier time?
The Andromeda Galaxy contains this many stars.
What are billions of stars?
New technologies in astronomy are important because they allow scientists to do this.
What is collect new data and learn more about the universe?
A cool star can appear very bright in the night sky if it has this property.
What is very large size (or high luminosity)?