
Understand the basic structure and diversity of stars, from tiny to enormous, and their impact on the universe, including supernovae, white dwarfs, and black holes.
Explore how stars vary from white dwarfs to black holes, including life cycles, magnitudes, and clusters. Learn how light, spectra, and cepheid variables reveal cosmic distances and galaxy structure.
Practice understanding with a set of 32 test questions and a complete answer key. Downloadable resources let you print, pause to view answers, or answer them directly as you watch.
Explore cross curricular and extension activities that connect astronomy to English composition, poetry, art appreciation, history, and music, and practice writing a personal observation to enrich the lesson.
See how the curriculum meets most state standards in science and technology, with NASA image credits and acknowledgments, plus a blueprint from a briefer history of time and family dedications.
Explore what astronomy studies: celestial objects beyond Earth's atmosphere, using light to reveal planets, stars, galaxies, and the universe, including measurements like light years and astronomical units.
Explore how solar eclipses occur when the moon blocks the sun, creating partial, annular, and total events, with corona, umbra and penumbra shadows, and phenomena like diamond ring.
Explore how meteor showers form as Earth passes through comet debris, revealing meteors and fireballs. Get practical tips for naked-eye viewing under dark skies.
Explore what causes the aurora, how Earth's magnetic field shields us from solar particles, and where to best observe aurora borealis and aurora australis, with practical viewing and photography tips.
Explore how the Artemis project plans a sustained return to the moon using the SLS, Orion, and a lunar gateway with international partners.
Stars are the workhorses of the universe and account for most of its mass. They come in many shapes and sizes, some as small as just a few miles across and others that are as large as much of our solar system. Some are hundreds of times hotter than the Sun and others are just a few thousand degrees. When stars start running out of fuel they do some crazy things like explode into supernovae or implode into tightly packed white dwarfs or black holes.
This Course includes the following great BONUS LESSONS:
What on Earth is Astronomy?
Mini-Lesson: Eclipses
Mini-Lesson: Meteor Showers
Mini-Lesson: Aurora
Project Artemis: America Returns to the Moon
Stars and Star Clusters
1. Objective
2. Warm-up activity
3. Stars in our sky: number and distance
4. Stars as related to the entire Universe: scope and function
5. Luminosity and magnitude
6. Absolute magnitude and apparent magnitude
7. Magnitude scale
8. The main sequence of stars
9. T Tauri stars
10. Red giant stars
11. Blue giant stars
12. White dwarf stars
13. Neutron stars
14. Pulsars
15. Red and brown dwarfs, and sub-stellar objects
16. Nuclear fusion
17. Definition of a star
18. The Sun: temperature, features, characteristics and atmospheres
19. Star size, mass and density
20. Star clustering and gravity
21. Open and closed star clusters
22. Galactic and globular star clusters
23. Prisms and the range of light
24. Red and blue shifts in the spectrum
25. The Doppler effect
26. Variable stars: pulsating, intrinsic, extrinsic and cataclysmic
27. Cepheid variable stars and distance calculations
28. Multiple star systems: binary and trinary stars
29. Types of orbits
30. Supernovae: cause and effect
31. Black holes
32. Test questions
33. Cross-curricular activities