Thursday 11 July 2013

Star facts

Star appear to twinkle because we see them through the layers of the Earth's atmosphere. Light is distorted as it passes through these layers, so that the amount we see changes constantly. Stars nearest the horizon seem to twinkle the most because the light is passing through a greater depth of atmosphere.Stars do not twinkle when viewed from space, so telescopes in space , such as the Hubble , give the best possible view of distant stars and galaxies.

A star is a luminous body of gas , mostly hydrogen and helium.Stars generate light , which makes it possible for us to see them with a telescope or a naked eye.

Brightness - Not counting the Sun, the brightest star as seen from earth is Sirius, known as Dog star, in the constellation of Canis Major.It has a diameter of 149,598.020 km and is more than 24 times brighter than the sun.The star LBV 1806-20 in the constellation of Sagittarius may be 40 million times as bright as our sun but dust clouds make it almost invisible from earth.

Largest - The largest star is VY Canis Majoris , which has an estimated diameter of about 1950 times greater than the Sun.

Nearest - Proxima Centauri , discovered in 1915 is a 4.22 light years from earth. A spaceship moving at 40,000 km/hr - which is faster than any human has yet traveled in space - would take more than 114000 years to reach it.

Supernovae - These are vast explosions in which a whole star blows up . They are extremely bright rivaling for a few days the combined light output of all the stars in the galaxy.Supernova are rare - the last one in our galaxy was seen in 1604 by the German astronomer Johannes Kepler.

Quasers - These are extremely distant radio galaxies - galaxies giving out large amount of radio energy - and the brightest objects in the universe.Their radio emission is typically 1,000,000 to 100,000,000. times greater than the normal galaxy.

Black holes - A black hole is a star that has collapsed into itself.It has the surface gravity so powerful that nothing can escape from within it.


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