STARS,

CONSTELLATIONS AND
PLANETS
STARS
• If you went outside on a clear
evening and brought along a blanket
and were to lie down and look in the
sky what would you see?
 WHAT IS A STAR?
• A star is a massive, bright, sphere of very hot gas
called plasma which is held together by its
own gravity.
• Stars radiate energy created from nuclear fusion,
which is a process that takes place in a star's core
and involves hydrogen fusing (burning) to
make helium.
 HOW DO STARS FORM?
• Stars form when enough dust and gas clump together
because of gravitational forces. Nuclear reactions release
energy to keep the star hot. Planets form when smaller
amounts of dust and gas clump together because of
gravitational forces.
• Stable stars like the Sun change during their lifetime to
form other types of stars, such as red giants, white
dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes. The fate of a star
depends upon how much matter it contains.
 STAR FACTS
• The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is classified as a G2
yellow dwarf star.
• There are approximately 200-400 billion stars in our Milky Way
Galaxy alone.
• Each galaxy contains hundreds of billions of stars and there is
estimated to be over 100 billion galaxies in the universe. So the
total number of stars in the universe is mind boggling, estimated to
be at least 70 sextillion and possibly as high as 300 sextillion,
that's 300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000!!!!!
• Stars are usually between 1 and 10 billion years old. Some stars
may even be close to the age of the observed Universe at nearly
13.8 billion years old.
WHAT MIGHT YOU SEE IN THE
NIGHT SKY?
• Astronomers classify stars according to their
physical characteristics. Characteristics used to
classify stars include color, temperature, size,
composition, and brightness.
• What does composition mean?
• One way scientists classify stars is by color. Star
colors range from blue, white, and yellow to
orange and red. The color of a star is a clue to its
surface temperature. Blue stars are the hottest,
and red stars are the coolest. Our sun is between
the hottest and the coolest stars.
• The brightness of a star depends upon both its size and its temperature.
How bright a star looks from Earth depends on both its distance from
Earth and how bright the star actually is.
• Distances on Earth’s surface are often measured in kilometers. However,
distances to the stars are so large that kilometers are not very practical
units. Astronomers use a unit called the light-year to measure distances
between the stars.
• A light-year is the distance that light travels in one year, about 9.5 million
million kilometers.
• The two most important
characteristics of stars are
temperature and absolute
brightness.
 STARS GROUPED BY SIZE

• Supergiants are the largest stars, and may have diameters

several hundred times the size of the Sun.
• Giants are more common than Supergiants, and have diameters
10 to 100 times as large as the Sun. Red Giants have cooler
temperatures than giants, and are thus less bright, but their size is
still massive.
• Medium-size or dwarf stars are about as large as the sun.
• White dwarfs are small stars (smaller than the distance across
Asia).
 THE SUN IS A STAR!!!!

What do you see?

CONSTELLATIONS
 HISTORY OF CONSTELLATIONS
• When ancient observers around the world looked up at the night sky, they
imagined that groups of stars formed pictures of people or animals.
Today, we call these imaginary patterns of stars constellations
When we talk about constellations,
do you know what they are?  
• The first thing you need to know is that constellations are
not real!
• The constellations are totally imaginary things that poets,
farmers and astronomers have made up over the past 6,000
years (and probably even more!). The real purpose for the
constellations is to help us tell which stars are which, nothing
more. On a really dark night, you can see about 1000 to 1500
stars. Trying to tell which is which is hard. The constellations
help by breaking up the sky into more managable bits. They
are used as mnemonics, or memory aids.
WHAT DO YOU SEE?
EXAMPLES OF CONSTELLATIONS
 CONSTELLATIONS VS. GALAXIES
VS UNIVERSE
• These stars form a constellation, a group of stars that form an
imaginary picture in the sky.

• A galaxy is a huge system of gases, dust, and stars.

Galaxies contain billions of stars. 

The universe is everything that exists in space.

 COMPARE STARS TO PLANETS

What are some comparisons of planets and stars just by looking at this picture?
PLANETS
• A solar system is a group of objects in space that orbit a
star in the center, plus the star itself. The sun is the star
in the center of our solar system. Everything else in the
solar system is small compared to the sun.
• Our solar system contains a variety of objects. These
include planets, “dwarf planA planet is a large object
that revolves around a star in a clear orbit. ets,” moons,
and asteroids. A “dwarf planet” also revolves around a
star, but its path is not clear of other objects. A moon is a
smaller object that revolves around a planet.
 THE INNER PLANETS
• The inner planets are those closest to the sun.
They are Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. These
planets are alike in many ways. They all have
rocky surfaces and are smaller than most of the
outer planets. 
 THE OUTER PLANETS
• Beyond Mars, on the far side of the asteroid belt, are the
outer planets. They are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and
Neptune.
• These four planets are huge and made mostly of gases.
They have no known solid surface. Their atmospheres
blend smoothly into the denser layers of their interiors,
very deep beneath the outer layers. For this reason, these
planets are often called the gas giants. 
• In our solar system, there are eight planets. Often,
scientists group them as the inner planets and the outer
planets.
THE EARTH AND ITS
MOTION
 THINK QUESTION
What is the difference
between rotating and
revolving?
• The changes of the seasons, as well as the changes of
night and day, occur because of the ways Earth moves.
• Earth moves in two ways. You have learned that Earth
rotates on its axis. It takes about 24 hours for Earth to
make one complete rotation.
• In addition to rotating on its axis, Earth revolves, or
travels in a path around the sun. An object’s path in
space around another object is its orbit. Earth’s orbit
takes about 365 days, or one year.
 YOU MAY KNOW THAT EARTH IS DIVIDED INTO NORTHERN AND
SOUTHERN HEMISPHERES BY THE EQUATOR. THE EQUATOR IS AN
IMAGINARY LINE GOING ALL THE WAY AROUND EARTH HALFWAY
BETWEEN THE NORTH AND SOUTH POLES.
 THINK QUESTION
•
Do we have summer because the Earth is
closer to the Sun during the summer?
• It’s the tilt of Earth’s axis that produces seasons.
• As Earth revolves, one part is tilted toward the
sun. That part of Earth takes in more energy from
the sun in the form of heat. The part that is tilted
away from the sun takes in less energy from the
sun.
MOON PHASES
• The moon is a small planetlike body that revolves around Earth rather
than the sun. As Earth revolves around the sun, the moon revolves
around Earth.
• The moon appears to shine, but the light you see is actually reflected
light from the sun. As the moon revolves around Earth, different amounts
of its lit surface can be seen. That’s why the moon seems to have
different shapes, or phases.
PHASES OF THE MOON
During the first half of the moon’s cycle, the
amount of the lit side of the moon seen from
Earth waxes, or increases.

During the second half of the moon’s cycle, the

amount of the lit side of the moon seen from
Earth wanes, or decreases. Then the cycle begins
again.