Children look up at the night sky, at the twinkling stars and occasional colorful bursts of planets, and wonder where they come from, what they were made of, and how far away they really are.
Astronomers do too.
Every day scientists across the globe stare endlessly at the printouts from huge telescopes or from satellites deep in the uncharted regions of the galaxy, searching for the slightest clue. Among them is Lee Carkner, a doctoral candidate in astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State, who, along with his adviser Eric Feigelson, is studying stars that closely resemble our own Sun. Stars are spawned by large clouds of gas and dust which eventually collapse, entering into the primary stage of stardom, the protostar phase. Protostars differ from stars like the Sun in that they do not burn hydrogen by nuclear fusion, but rather garner their energy from gravitational collapse. T Tauri stars are strong x-ray emitters, although most of their surface is only a few thousand degrees warm.