COSMIC CANVAS: STELLAR EVOLUTION PROGRAM GUIDE

• Printed (in color) images from the Astronomical Images, Illustrations, and Artworks List 
• and/or… Astronomy Sonifications (available on YouTube) and/or 3D Tactile Plates (3D-printable as STL or GLB files)  
• Chart paper (1 sheet for each group of 4–6 people) 
• Markers, pens, or pencils 
• Slips of scrap paper, notecards, or post-it notes 
• Tape

Gather writing materials including chart paper, writing utensils, slips of paper, and tape.

If using printed images, print the images in color. Each pair should have one image.

If using the astronomical sonifications and/or 3D tactile plates:

• Sonifications: Prepare the audio files to be played from “A Universe of Sound” webpage, and review the “About the Sonifications” section for more background information about sonification.
• Tactile plates: Use a 3D printer to create tactile models of star life stages or planets. We recommend the Crab Nebula, Orion Nebula, WR 124, or the Eagle Nebula for life stages of stars. For planets, we recommend Jupiter.

Welcome and Introduction (about 2 minutes)

1. Welcome participants. Review expectations including how participants will work in pairs.
2. Review goals for the day and the overall agenda.

Introduce the Exercise (3 minutes)

3. Say: “We’re going to use our imaginations, close observation, and communication skills to create a caption, poem, short story, or song inspired by astronomy!”
4. If desired, read one or more completed examples and show the accompanying image/ artwork. (See the “Astropoetry/ short story/ lyrics examples” section below.) 
5. Next, inform participants that to make their poem, short story, or song, they will study an image, jot descriptive words on slips of paper, and reorganize them into a final piece.

Create Stories, Poems, and/or Songs (15 minutes)

6. Form groups and distribute materials:

• Divide the participants into groups, with ideally 2–3 youth-adult pairs (for a total of 4–6 people) per group. 
• Distribute the astronomical images, illustrations, artworks, writing utensils, and slips of paper to each group. 

Generate Words and Short Phrases:

7. Encourage participants to closely examine their image and write down single words and/or short phrases that describe the image and/or what it reminds them of.

• Participants should generate a mix of adjectives, nouns, adverbs, and verbs. 
• Instruct them to write one word or a very short phrase (at most two words) per slip of paper.

 

Assemble the “Stories”:

8. Once each group has at least 30 slips of paper, have participants work together to arrange the words into a poem, story, or song in any manner they like.
9. Encourage participants to add words such as: it, the, like, a, as, etc… to connect their words and phrases.

• Participants do not need to use every word they write.
• While participants organize their words and/or short phrases, distribute a sheet of chart paper to each group.

Share: 

• Groups should transfer their final story, poem, or song onto the chart paper, taping down the slips and/or rewriting their words. 
• They should tape the image onto the chart paper, title their poem/story/song, and add their names. 
• Display each groups’ creation in front of all participants.
• A volunteer from one or two groups should share their poem/story/song with the other groups and describe their thought process for creating their piece. 

Ideas for you to reinforce in your discussion:

• In both art and science, original thinking based on the world around you is essential.
• During this activity, participants made observations, thought about what they saw, communicated with each other, and generated a new way of looking at the world. This is something artists and scientists do every day.

Transition:

Share that in the next activity, participants will be working with a model that helps tell a story about the life cycle of stars. While part of scientists’ jobs is to tell stories rooted in observations and facts, they still need to think creatively about how to interpret and share what they have observed.

Stay active and iterative:

Encourage participants to actively rearrange the words when creating their poem/short story/song. The process should be collaborative and iterative — just like science! Also, inform participants that they will be sharing their poems in front of the group. If you feel as though some groups may be hesitant to share their work out loud, encourage the full group to contribute and/or ask for a single representative to share.

Change up the images:

If you and/or participants have access to an internet-connected device during the program, they can go to Astropix.org and search for “stellar evolution,” “exoplanet,” or other astronomical terms to find astronomical images and/or scientific illustrations to inspire their work. Once you search for a particular term or object name, participants can filter the results by “Image Type” in the right-hand column to show only “Artwork” or only an astronomical “Observation.” 

Add additional flourishes:

Encourage participants to get creative and make their stories their own by adding intonation, rhythm, and/or melody to their short poem, song, and/or story. 

For blind and low vision participants: 

Rather than images, provide participants with one or more of the following types of material(s) to explore when creating their story, poem, or song:

• Astronomy Sonifications (available on YouTube) and/or 3D Tactile Plates (3D-printable as STL or GLB files)
• Check out the “About the Sonifications” section for more background information on sonification.

Antennae Galaxy (Image source):

A magnificent, bright, red, fireball-like heart is moving…

An exploding fuzzy dark aura of dust is expanding…

Morphing blue and yellow fire are colliding to become the origin of stars…

A giant shrimp is born.

 

 

 

Interacting Galaxies Arp 142 (Image source):

In swirling splendor, galaxies dance,

A Penguin watches over an Egg in a cosmic trance.

Yellowish stars ignite in the background,

With two white, pointy stars dangling like ornaments.

 

 

 

 

L1527 and Protostar (Image source):

In a glowing, blue feathery hourglass,

A red heart beats, with streams of light.

Clouds of white and blue plumes rise,

Twinkling red, yellow, and blue stars in cosmic skies.

 

 

 

 

Super-Earth Exoplanet 55 Cancri e (Image source):

A blazing yellow star with long streams of light,

Makes one side of a planet bright,

The planet’s sky is pinkish and white,

With swirls of grays and reds, its rocky surface looks like a sundae delight.

Per participant: 

• Watercolor paper (2 sheets per participant, recommended size is at least 7” x 10”) 
• Pencil with an eraser (for sketching outlines) 
• Watercolor paintbrushes (at least 2, round and flat)  

Per pair (these can be shared): 

• Printed (in color) Star-forming Nebula Example Diagrams (for larger groups you can use 1 set per 2–3 pairs)  
• Watercolor paints (pan or tube with at least red, orange, yellow, green, blue, brown, and black) 
• Crayons (for making the wax-relief stars, with yellow, red, orange, green, blue, and/or white)  
• Two water-filled containers (one for clean water for adding to the paints, one for rinsing brushes) 
• Palette or paper plate (for mixing paint colors) 
• Paper towel or cloth (for blotting excess water) 

Optional materials: 

• Masking tape (for taping down the paper) 
• Tissue paper (for adding texture; see Option A)  
• Coarse salt (See Tips and Adaptations section.)  
• Internet-connected device(s) for viewing:
  • Our Paint a Star-forming Nebula Tutorial video.
  • ViewSpace’s Star Formation Eagle Nebula Interactive Slider, Star Formation Lagoon Nebula Interactive Slider and/or Star Formation Rosette Nebula Slider.

1. To save time during the activity, gather art materials for each pair in advance. 
2. Print the Star-forming Nebula Example Diagrams for pairs to examine.
3. Optionally, we recommend viewing our Paint a Star-forming Nebula Tutorial video, which walks you through the following steps while providing background information about the forces that shape star-forming regions. If you’d like, you can also play this video during your program, so participants can follow along step by step.

Introduce Star-forming Nebulae (4 minutes)

1. Introduce star-forming nebulae and the forces that shape them:
   1. Explain that a star-forming nebula, or stellar nursery, is an enormous cloud of gas and dust in space where new stars are born.
   2. Note that astronomers study star-forming nebulae by using different telescopes — like the James Webb Space Telescope — which can observe these faraway regions across different types of light, helping us peer through gas and dust.
   3. By studying star-forming nebulae, scientists are able to better understand how stars and planets form, and are hoping to find clues about the origins of elements and molecules that are essential to life.  
   4. These regions are rich in materials that are shaped by many different forces. For example, as gas and dust collapse under the pull of gravity, they form dense clumps, which then collapse into many cores. Those cores further collapse and heat up to form individual stars. As the stars heat up, they begin interacting with their environments. These young, hot stars blow stellar winds, which are charged particles moving at high speeds. They also emit high-energy light. The winds and light from the stars carve and shape the nebula. This can disrupt the bulk of the surrounding nebula and limit how many other stars can form near them. The reverse is also true: These same processes can also compact surrounding dense gas, triggering new star formation! 
   5. Explain that in this activity, participants will use watercolor paints, a pencil, and crayons to create their own model of a star-forming nebula that shows how these regions are shaped by young stars. 

 

Explore Features of Star-forming Nebulae (about 10 minutes)

2. Using the printed Star-forming Nebula Example Diagrams, introduce the following key features star-forming nebulae typically have: 

• Irregularly shaped clouds: Blobby clouds of gas and dust that exhibit complex, irregular shapes with regions of varying density. Denser areas appear dark and less dense areas appear lighter. 
• Hot stars: Hot, bright stars shine both nearby and embedded within the clouds, heating and disrupting the surrounding gas.  
• Cavities and bubbles: Hollowed-out regions in the dense cloud are created by stellar winds and light from hot stars, resulting in cavities and bubble-like openings within the nebula. 
• Backlighting effect: Dark clouds often feature a backlighting effect, where starlight from obscured stars scatters around the dust, creating a glowing outline around the dense regions. 
• Pillars: Pillars of dense gas and dust that are more resistant to the strong stellar winds and high-energy light coming from young stars appear as column-like structures. 
• Streamers of gas and dust: Thin, wispy, fog-like strands of gas and dust extend from pillars or other denser areas within the nebula, indicating areas where stars are forming or where the nebula is being eroded by nearby hot stars. These streamers are carried by stellar winds. 
• Protostars: Young stars still in the process of forming, called protostars, are often hidden within the dense (darker) regions of the nebula, and are sometimes visible as bright spots shining through the dust and gas. 
• Protostellar jets: Narrow streams of gas that point outward from forming protostars in opposite directions from the stars’ poles. They are created as the stars pull in and then shoot out the surrounding gas.

 

Optional (4 additional minutes):

Have participants watch ViewSpace’s “Pillars of Creation - Interplay of Stars and Dust” video, which highlights the forces shaping star-forming nebulae.

 

Paint Your Nebula (about 20 minutes)

Tips for getting started:

• Introducing watercolor techniques: Participants can draw inspiration from these watercolor techniques. 
• Practicing techniques first: Begin by encouraging participants to use their extra sheet of watercolor paper as a practice canvas. This allows participants to experiment with different washes, layering, wax resist, and texturing methods. Try out various amounts of water, paint, and pressure to see how they affect the color intensity and textures. Practicing helps participants gain confidence and identify which techniques they like best before committing to their final artwork!

1. Outline where the young, hot stars are located:
   1. Explain to participants: Stars form inside dense, cold areas in space that have gas and dust. By dust, we mean teeny-tiny particles of sand and soot-like molecules. When young, hot stars form inside these nebulae, they send out ultraviolet light and winds in all directions, heating and pushing gas and dust out of some areas while compressing it in others. This carves out roughly circular cavities or bubbles in the surrounding gas.
   2. Determine where your young, hot stars are located inside your nebula: In some images of star-forming nebulae, like this iconic Pillars of Creation image and this Cosmic Cliffs in the Carina Nebula image, the stars are out of frame along the top. In other instances, like in these images of the Lagoon Nebula and the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, a massive star is in the center of the image and carves out a cavity in the dense gas. Other star-forming nebulae, like the Tarantula Nebula, have a cluster of stars in the center carving a cavity in the surrounding gas.
   3. Outline the young, hot stars: Wherever your stars are located, feel free to lightly outline them as circles or add some pointed diffraction spikes using your pencil. You may choose to draw several stars close together (a star cluster) or spread apart.

 

2. Outline the densest parts of the nebula cloud:
   1. Explain to participants: The gravity, turbulence, and magnetic fields inside of star-forming nebulae mean that their gas and dust is not uniformly dense. Denser pockets of gas resist erosion from stars, forming pillars. Pillars may look like majestic rock formations but are actually permeable columns made up of cool interstellar gas and dust. 
   2. Don’t worry about creating precise shapes. Nebulae are often irregular and cloud-like! Remember to draw some hollowed-out cavities carved by stellar winds and light emanating from where you placed the young, hot stars.
   3. Using your pencil, outline the locations of the densest dust and gas clouds within your nebula. These dense parts might surround your star or star cluster to form a donut-like shape, they might form a mountain range-like ridge along the bottom of your paper, they may appear fluffy and cloud-like, or they might form pillars that point toward where your hot, young stars are located. 

 

3. Add stars outside of your nebula cloud:
   1. Explain to participants: In many telescope images of star-forming nebulae, other stars often appear outside the nebula. These stars appear to be different sizes due to the way their light interacts with the telescope optics and detector. Some are positioned in front of or behind the nebula.
   2. What to do: A mix of massive, young, hot stars (like the ones you sketched in the first step), foreground, and background stars appear outside the nebula. To depict these stars, use a white, yellow, and/or a blue crayon to draw different-sized dots or dots with pointed diffraction spikes radiating outward (like in telescope images) around and in front of where your nebula cloud will be. As you are drawing, press the crayon(s) firmly against the paper to create a wax-resist effect. Wax resist is a technique where the wax repels watercolor. When you apply watercolor in the following steps, the areas where you applied the crayon’s wax will stay unpainted or lighter, revealing stars shining through.

 

4. Fill in the depths of space (your background) and glowing cavities:
   1. Explain to participants: The cavities carved by stars are often filled with sparse, hot, glowing gas. They appear as brightly-colored areas in telescope images. The depths of space surrounding nebulae often appear as a darker color.
   2. What to do: Create a wash (or two, if you’ll be painting the space within the cavities a different color) to show the depths of space around your nebula. Mix a generous amount of water with black and/or blue paint to make a transparent wash. A wash is a broad, diluted layer of color, usually applied to a large area of paper using a wider flat-headed brush. By diluting the paint with water, you create a lighter background. Note that the ratio of water to paint will impact how dark or light your wash is. Apply this wash using a flat-headed brush around your nebula’s edges, avoiding the inner clouds. Remember: You can paint right over any crayon stars you added in the previous step!
   3. Next, create a separate, lighter wash (perhaps using green and/or blue) to paint the cavities carved in your nebula. After cleaning your flat-headed brush with water, apply this wash to the cavities and bubbles within the nebula cloud.

5. Fill in your gas and dust cloud (and add some details!):
   1. Explain to participants: Star-forming nebulae are vast clouds of gas and dust, primarily made of hydrogen and helium. They appear cloud-like because gravity pulls the gas and dust together while stars sculpt and illuminate these areas, creating intricate structures.
   2. What to do: Using a different lighter color from the background you just painted — we recommend shades of brown, orange, and/or red — create a wash inside the nebula cloud area to represent the hot, glowing gases. Then, add layers and more details as outlined in steps c and d. 
   3. Layering technique: Watercolors are transparent, so you can layer colors to build depth. Start with lighter, more diluted colors, and layer darker tones as you go along. Try swirling different color washes together to mimic the swirling pattern of gas and dust clouds moving through the nebula.
   4. To add details: Choose one or more of the following options (A, B, C). 

 

Option A: Add texture with tissue paper

• What to do: While the paint is still wet, crumple a piece of tissue paper and press it gently onto the wet wash. Hold it for a few seconds, then remove it. Let the paint dry completely.
• Texturing technique: This method adds texture to the paint by lifting some color and leaving behind ridges and folds, mimicking the irregular nature of gas clouds.

Option B: Darken dense parts of the nebula (like pillars) 

• What to do: Add darker shades in some areas to show the densest parts of the nebula, such as pillars. These dense parts scatter and absorb visible wavelengths of light, so they appear opaque. Layer darker shades of paint over the existing colors by mixing less water with your paint to make the color richer and more opaque.

Option C: Create wispy gas streamers

• Thin, wispy, fog-like strands of gas and dust extend from pillars, cavity edges, and/or other denser areas within the nebula, indicating areas where stars are forming or where the nebula is being eroded by nearby hot stars. These streamers are carried by stellar winds.
• What to do: To create the delicate filaments of gas being blown away, let the paint dry slightly but not completely. Using a clean, wet brush, carefully drop water droplets onto the edges of your painted gas clouds. The water will spread the paint outward, creating feathery tendrils that mimic the soft, flowing motion of gas being swept away. Keep the paper flat, and allow it to dry naturally for the best results.
• Wet-on-wet technique: This method involves applying wet paint or water on a wet surface, creating soft, blended edges or a feathered effect. The added water will cause the paint to spread out slightly, creating a soft, wispy look.
• Add in extras. Sometimes stars forming inside of dense areas of gas and dust will shoot off jets, like what we see in Mystic Mountain. Sometimes the outflows from young stars will shock and heat the surrounding gas, creating lava-like glowing tips, such as those seen in this Pillars of Creation image.

 

6. Add stars inside the nebula’s gas clouds:
   1. Explain to participants: There are many stars embedded within the dusty clouds that make up star-forming nebulae. These stars often appear reddish because they form inside thick cocoons of gas and dust, which scatter and absorb shorter (blue) wavelengths of light more than longer (red) wavelengths, allowing more red light to reach us.
   2. Add protostars within your nebula. Using a fine-tipped, round-headed brush or a paint pen, carefully add red or orange dots of paint to represent young protostars embedded in the denser regions of the nebula. Because these stars appear as though they are peeking through openings in layers of gas and dust, they might not appear perfectly round.

 

7. Name your nebula:
   1. Encourage participants to name their nebula.
   2. Explain to participants: Astronomers typically name star-forming nebulae based on either their appearance or the constellation of stars in which they’re located. For example, many are given names that describe their overall shape or resemblance to familiar objects, such as the Eagle Nebula or Horsehead Nebula.

 

8. Display the nebulae:
   1. Have participants display their final paintings by taping them on a wall.
   2. Optionally, participants can leave their creations at your location to create a gallery.

Guiding questions (these can be asked as participants’ paintings are drying):

• How did you take into account the real ways that stars, gas, and dust interact to create your depiction of a nebula? What are other ways that artists use scientific concepts to add realism to their work? (Examples could include: anatomy, animal behavior, reflection/refraction/scattering of light, and the physics of how things move.) 
• What connections did you notice between art and science based on your experience in this program?

Idea to reinforce through discussion:

Models like your watercolor painting and the bookmark help us focus on and better understand some aspects of the universe while not representing other aspects fully. Scientists often use models in their work to communicate and test ideas, and the artistic elements are an essential piece to forming a sense of the universe that we can grasp as humans.

 

Introduce different watercolor techniques:

Encourage participants to get creative with using their watercolors. Participants can draw more features with their crayons to produce a wax-resist effect, sprinkle salt on their paper to create speckles for stars, blot their paint with a wrinkled piece of tissue paper to add texture to the gas and dust in their nebula, and more! You can review watercolor techniques, here.

For blind and low vision learners:

• To introduce how astronomers visualize star-forming nebulae, play the audio description for the “The Pillars of Creation and the Interplay of Stars and Dust” video. The audio descriptions can be downloaded from here, and they explore the iconic Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula and the various ways that dust is involved in the process of star formation. You can also play the Pillars of Creation Sonification for participants to experience the nebula through sound.
• Rather than paint a star-forming nebula, participants can sculpt their nebula scene out of modeling clay and on top of their sheet of paper. Instead of using the printed diagrams, the following 3D print and modeling files of the Eagle Nebula can serve as inspiration:
  • Pillars of Creation (M16) 3D Print File
  • Pillars of Creation 3D Model

Internet-connected device option:

Allow participants to explore ViewSpace’s Star Formation Eagle Nebula Interactive and/or the Star Formation Lagoon Nebula Interactive when introducing the features commonly seen within. This can be done in pairs on any internet-connected device, such as a tablet or cellphone, or as a full group using a large screen. To navigate, use the slider bar to view the nebula in different wavelengths of light, taking note of the image captions and short story below for more information. Encourage participants to take note of what features they notice.

Tutorial Video:

We’ve created a step-by-step Paint a Star-forming Nebula Tutorial video, which you can play and pause during your program to guide participants through the watercolor painting process.