Essay - Stars the Stars that One Might Observe with the Naked...

Stars

The stars that one might observe with the naked eye have a life of their own. Many of the visible stars such as the sun are ***** old as the universe itself and their formation ***** lifespan gives clues to the processes of creation and destruction ***** ***** fueled the creation ***** the universe. Stars have a definite structure, defining ch*****racteristics, a life cycle, ***** a place in ***** universe.

***** knows that stars emit light and are, therefore, visible to the ***** eye ***** to astronomers who use technology to observe the pho*****ns. A casual observer ***** even think ***** stars "twinkle," but this effect is a result of Earth's air movements ***** change the straight path of the stars' rays. Stars are considered light-*****ting or luminous bodies. Their luminosity ***** "the rate at which a st*****r emits energy" and is measured in watts compared relatively ***** the ***** of the ***** (Green, 2005, p. 2). Another facet ***** visibility of stars is their color spectrum. There are six b*****s that make up the electromagnetic spectrum and ***** are capable of emitting all six, but not all of them do. The six bands are radio waves, infrared rays, visible light, ultraviolet *****, X rays, and gamma ***** (Green, *****, p. 3). A star's color is affected by the energy *****roduced by it and measuring ***** emission lines in the star's electromagnetic ***** is one way for scientists to determine the temperature and energy of a star.

***** have many variants such as age, size, m*****s, and luminos*****y, but one thing they have in common is that "about 75 percent of all *****s are members ***** a binary system, a pair of closely spaced stars ***** orbit each other" (Green, 2005, p. 1). Stars are also grouped *****gether in galaxies such as the Milky Way which hosts more than 100 billion stars. "Three-dimensional computer models of star ***** predict that ***** spinning clouds of dust may break up into two or three blo*****; if true, ***** would explain why the majority of the stars in the Milky ***** are *****ed or in groups of multiple stars" (, p.1). Clearly, the ***** ***** f*****mation of individual stars mimics the structure of other important elements of the universe.

What exactly is a star? "A ***** ***** a huge, shining ball in space that produces a tremendous *****mount of light and ***** forms of energy. The sun is a star, and it supplies Earth with light and heat energy...***** sun and most o*****r *****s ***** made of gas and hot, gaslike substance known as pl*****ma (Green, *****, p. 1). The character*****tics that define stars fall ***** five categories ***** are all related and interdependent. These ***** ***** brightness, color, surface temperature, size, and mass. "These characteristics are related to one a*****her in a complex way. Color depends on surface temperature, and brightness depends ***** surface temperature and *****. Mass affects the rate at which a star of a given size produces energy