| | 
Star Structure and Function Our star, the Sun (Sol) is about 4.5 billion years old and probably half-way through its Stellar Evolution Cycle. In the year 2,000,002,000 AD (about 2 billion years from now) our star will be farther along in the process of stellar evolution. What would that mean for the people of Earth? Learn more about stellar evolution in this series of simple lessons on the structure and function of stars. | This series of lessons teaches about stellar evolution with a national and state standards-based curriculum, group activities, vocabulary lists, and an interactive Hertzsprung-Russell diagram designed to provide students a simple exploratory interface based on real data of stellar luminosity and temperature. These lessons also highlights the numerous valuable data archives available on the web for stellar data, including the National Virtual Observatory's DataScope, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and more. | 
NGC 6543, a dying star surrounded by expanding gas (Credit: J.P. Harrington and K.J. Borkowski, University of Maryland, and NASA )
|
 | In these lessons you will find two fun activities. The first is an interactive HertzSprung Russell Diagram in Lesson 1 to help you learn about the relationship between stellar temperature and luminosity. |
The second activity is an Interactive Fusion Computer Activity in Lesson 3 to help you understand the various atoms involved in hydrogen fusion, the energy-producing process inside most stars. |  |
| |
| 1 | Lesson 1: What Is A Star? | This lesson introduces the basic concepts of a star, and uses our own solar system's star, the Sun, as one example. A star is an unbelievably large ball of gas that gives off light because of the Nuclear Reactions taking place in it. Stars provide the visible light in the Universe. There are lots of different kinds of stars and some are extremely massive and some are much smaller. The links below provide the content for this lesson. Begin with the Introduction. | 
|
| 
|
| 2 | Lesson 2: Fusion The first 3 states of matter are very familiar: Solids, liquids and gases. The 4th state of matter is plasma and most of the matter in the Universe is made of plasma. Stars are made of plasma. Plasma is ionized gas. | 
|
|
|
| 3 | Lesson 3: Star Structure and Fusion | (Adapted from Wikipedia) Nuclear fusion of light elements releases the energy that causes stars to shine and hydrogen bombs to explode. Nuclear fusion of heavy elements occurs in the extreme conditions of supernova explosions. Nuclear fusion in stars and supernovae is the primary process by which new natural elements are created. It takes considerable energy to force nuclei to fuse, even those of the least massive element, hydrogen. But the fusion of lighter nuclei, which creates a heavier nucleus and a free neutron, will generally release more energy than it took to force them together an exothermic process that can produce self-sustaining reactions. |  |
|
|
| 4 | Supplement 1: Stellar Evolution Investigation | This is a group activity where each group of students represents a specific stage in the life cycle of a star and must search image data archives to identify images representative of their specific stage. |  |
|
|
