THE LIFE OF STARS LARA-JANE VAN ANTWERPEN
STAR
LIFE CYCLE
Stellar Nebula
Red Super Giant
Planetary Nebula
Planetary Nebula
GLOBAL wARmING As our own star (the sun) ages it burns brighter, this has certain effects to our planet. The most pressing one is that our polar ice caps are melting.
StAR CHILDREN Every star holds the elements that make up the universe. All the elements that made the earth were found in the dust left behind by star explosions. We are children of stars
STAR DUST Ever since the Hubble telescope was launched, there have been thousands of images of space that show us that our universe is even more beautiful than we could have ever imagined. We have learnt so much about our galaxy and just how vast our universe is. Some of the most popular images are of star dust clouds (nebula’s). This is what we are made of. But if the Dust holds the elements that created us and we are only one planet in our entire universe, surely the stars have created something else..
ASTROLOGY Ancient Greeks and Romans were famous for their stories that were told and reflected in star constellations. Their stories were legends of heros and gods that were sent up amongst the stars for eternity so that their stories would be remembered for all time. When we look up at the sky, we might only see thousands of shining lights, but when they looked up, they saw images portrayed by connecting stars.
A magical dog which was destined never to surrender a chase. It was bestowed on Europa by Zeus, who passed it to her son Minos and from him to Procris and Cephalus. The last of these set it to hunt down the Teumessian hare (or fox), which was destined to never be caught. To resolve the contrary fates of the two animals, Zeus placed them amongst the stars as the constellations Canis Major (the dog) and Lepus (the hare) or Canis Minor (the fox) to play out the chase unresolved for eternity.
A water-serpent was placed amongst the stars by the god Apollo in the form of the constellation Hydra, to guard the heavenly bowl Crater, preventing the crow Corvus from drinking.
AGALAXY FAR FAR AwAY Astronomers in 1986 attempted to do something extraordinary, they pointed the Hubble telescope into a part of the sky that seemed utterly empty. A patch devoid of any planets, stars or galaxies. The patch of sky was no bigger than a grain of sand held at arms length. There was a real risk that the image would return as black as the sky it was pointed at. But never the less they opened up the telescope for 10 days and the image they received after those longs days would be one of the most famous of all hubble photos...