Stars

The sun will never run out of oxygen because it does not use oxygen in its process in the first place.What does the sun burn then?The sun does not burn thanks to a chemical combustion such as the flame fed by oxygen. The sun carries out nuclear fusion instead of using oxygen. The sun is …

To start with: the sun is not the center point of solar system. But the answer is more complicated than that. First, we have to define the center of our solar system, then we need to investigate why people believed the earth was the center instead of the ‘obvious’ answer of the sun, which is …

The quickest way to answer this question is to say that the stars are not actually fixed in space, they are in fact always moving. But we are also going to explain how astronomers know this and how stars are actually always moving. Since, you came here for an answer.But they always look so still!Yes, …

Although it is true that the universe is expanding at a rapid rate, this expansion of the universe does not affect our galaxy in the ways you might think.How galaxies are affected by universe expansionOur galaxy is made up of astronomical bodies, all of which orbit other objects and have a set path that has …

To begin with, there is no amount of water that you can throw at the sun to ‘put it out’. Throwing water on the sun would actually make the sun burn even more.Isn’t the sun like a giant fire?The sun’s process is nuclear fusion, not chemical combustion which means that it is not a regular …

The sun never changes its temperature in relation to Earth’s seasons. Since it is literally a ball of fire facilitated by nuclear reactions, its surface stays hot all year round. The extremely high heat of the sun causes it to emit copious amounts of radiation in all directs from its spherical shape. Since the sun …

To begin with, being ‘stuck’ in the night sky is not exclusive to the North star: none of the stars in the night sky actually move enough for our time measurements to comprehend.  They will move over the course of millions of years, meaning we won’t see them move across the sky in our lifetimes. The …

In a short and direct answer: the sun’s light and color is white.  You may have heard about the light spectrum that we can see with the human eye being white light. This is because they all come together to form white light. Since we can see the range of seven colors of light in the outside …

Although it is true that light has no mass, it does in fact carry energy. This answer is a little more complex than that simple statement though and may require you to have a little basic knowledge on Einstein’s theory of special relativity: the theory that can explain how space and time are linked. E …

I’ve heard multiple sources say the sun is white, that it just looks yellow because the Earth’s atmosphere is scattering the blue light. I’ve heard in other places that the sun is yellow because of its position in the Hertzsprung-Russell (H-R) Diagram. Which is it? It can’t be both yellow and white at the same …

I understand stars are millions of light years away and it takes a long, long time for the light of say a star exploding to reach us. We have pictures of stars exploding 50 years ago. Why are those stars still exploding? Do they explode in slow motion?? Also, why don’t we see galaxies turning? …

That’s a very interesting question, and one that can often be very difficult to answer when getting deep into the details, but I’ll try and do a quick “back-of-the-envelope” calculation for you and mention when these tricky little details might become important and change my answer. Here is the basic problem to solve. The Sun …

I read that Betelgeuse is shrinking. Is it true, and will there be any consequences? Betelgeuse is a star very often studied by astronomers. Before answering why Betelgeuse is shrinking, let’s explain how to keep a star in a stable state. To do that, two forces must be in equilibrium: gravity, which pulls inward and tries …

Do single stars tend to rotate in the same direction as the Sun and/or the Galaxy? This is a more technical question, so I am going to give a more technical answer, but first the simple answer. No, the rotation of a single star is not aligned with the galactic rotation because there are more …

Thanks for the great question! Many people get confused about these two terms as you do. Hopefully I can help clarifying the difference. The dictionary definition of “Twin” is a person or thing that is exactly like each other, or something containing or consisting of two matching or corresponding parts. Therefore, when an article says …

How can astronomers zero in on one single star for spectral analysis yet be sure they are not receiving light pollution from other stars in the field of view? Before the spectrum is taken, we are usually able to image the star field and we can also image the position of the slit, which lets …