Pennsylvania is known to have some great places that you can go to to gaze at the stars. I was wondering what exactly were stars and how are they formed. Stars are held up in the sky by their own source of gravity and are filled with luminous gas. It is composed of mostly hydrogen and helium. Nuclear fission also plays a role with making a star. It supports the star with its number of reactions holding it against gravity. This ends up producing photons, heat, and also creates heavier elements.
On clear nights you can usually see stars in the sky but do we really know where they come from? In a recent star formation theory it is believed that stars start out as basic clumps inside gas clouds that eventually fall on each other. After the material that is inside a cloud gets hot enough the gravity of the cloud causes it to fall inward. The gas then heats up to 18 million degrees. Once it reaches this extremely hot temperature hydrogen nuclei forms into helium nuclei. The results form into what you see in the sky on a clear night. Nuclear fissions energy causes the center of the star to radiate outside the star which causes it halt the collapse of the gas cloud.
You can also see which stars are the hotter ones. Blue lighted stars are the hottest and the lighter color stars are lower in temperature. In the next million or so years the hottest stars will have used up all their energy. The lighter stars however have the ability to burn billions of years down the road. Now this leads to my next question. What exactly causes a shooting star?
Shooting stars really aren’t even stars at all. They are made of meteoroids that entire entire our atmosphere burning up. The small light you see behind the star is actually called a meteor. If any part of its journey actually hit the Earths surface it is then dubbed the name meteorite. I always thought space was pretty awesome thing to look at and what better way to start then with the stars. You may now understand a little more about them and have a better understanding.
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-resources/what-is-a-star/
http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/questions/question12.html
http://kazzabee.com/2012/06/04/be-better-basket-challenge-1-stop-look-up-at-the-stars-and-dream/
Cool to find out what shooting stars are and where stars come from. Last february, I traveled to Nicaragua and the stars were breathtaking, and 10 nights in a row I saw more stars than I had even seen at my home on Long Island. Why could I see stars better in a third world country than at my own home, which isn’t in a city filled with pollution that would possibly cover up the stars? Turns out that even though I am an hour from NYC, there is light pollution where I live. In Nicaragua, there are no major cities that are even close to NYC in terms of light pollution.
http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/26788/why-can-i-never-see-any-stars-in-the-night-sky