Mini Stars Kits
About Educational Resource
Our Milky Way galaxy contains several hundred billion stars of all ages, sizes, and masses – and there are billions of galaxies in the universe. One of the central quests of astronomy is to understand how these stars form, shine for millions or billions of years, and eventually die.
A star forms when a dense cloud of gas collapses until nuclear reactions begin deep in the interior of the cloud and provide enough energy to halt the collapse. But the fate of a star depends on its mass.
This kit explores three examples of stellar objects in our own cosmic backyard, the Milky Way galaxy, that we can feel in 3D through the mapping of direct observations in the sky. The set includes a region of star birth, a mature star system, and an exploded star that left behind a dense core.