The stars that make up a constellation appear close to each other from Earth. In reality, they may be very distant from one another. Constellations were important to people, like the Ancient Greeks. People who spent a lot of time outdoors at night, like shepherds, named them and told stories about them. Figure 26.1 shows one of the most easily recognized constellations. The ancient Greeks thought this group of stars looked like a hunter. They named it Orion, after a great hunter in Greek mythology. The constellations stay the same night after night. The patterns of the stars never change. However, each night the constellations move across the sky. They move because Earth is spinning on its axis. The constellations also move with the seasons. This is because Earth revolves around the Sun. Different constellations are up in the winter than in the summer. For example, Orion is high up in the winter sky. In the summer, its only up in the early morning. Only a tiny bit of the Suns light reaches Earth. But that light supplies most of the energy at the surface. The Sun is just an ordinary star, but it appears much bigger and brighter than any of the other stars. Of course, this is just because it is very close. Some other stars produce much more energy than the Sun. How do stars generate so much energy? Stars shine because of nuclear fusion. Fusion reactions in the Suns core keep our nearest star burning. Stars are made mostly of hydrogen and helium. Both are very lightweight gases. A star contains so much hydrogen and helium that the weight of these gases is enormous. The pressure at the center of a star is great enough to heat the gases. This causes nuclear fusion reactions. A nuclear fusion reaction is named that because the nuclei (center) of two atoms fuse (join) together. In stars like our Sun, two hydrogen atoms join together to create a helium atom. Nuclear fusion reactions need a lot of energy to get started. Once they begin, they produce even more energy. Scientists have built machines called particle accelerators. These amazing tools smash particles that are smaller than atoms into each other head-on. This creates new particles. Scientists use particle accelerators to learn about nuclear fusion in stars. They can also learn about how atoms came together in the early universe. Two well-known accelerators are SLAC, in California, and CERN, in Switzerland. Stars shine in many different colors. The color relates to a stars temperature and often its size. Think about the coil of an electric stove as it heats up. The coil changes in color as its temperature rises. When you first turn on the heat, the coil looks black. The air a few inches above the coil begins to feel warm. As the coil gets hotter, it starts to glow a dull red. As it gets even hotter, it becomes a brighter red. Next it turns orange. If it gets extremely hot, it might look yellow-white, or even blue-white. Like a coil on a stove, a stars color is determined by the temperature of the stars surface. Relatively cool stars are red. Warmer stars are orange or yellow. Extremely hot stars are blue or blue-white. The most common way of classifying stars is by color as shown, in Table 26.1. Each class of star is given a letter, a color, and a range of temperatures. The letters dont match the color names because stars were first grouped as A through O. It wasnt until later that their order was corrected to go by increasing temperature. When you try to remember the order, you can use this phrase: Oh Be A Fine Good Kid, Man. Class O Color Blue Temperature range 30,000 K or more Sample Star An artists depiction of the O class star Zeta Pup- pis. B Blue-white 10,00030,000 K An artists depiction of Rigel, a Class B star. Class A Color White Temperature range 7,50010,000 K Sample Star Sirius A is the brightest star that we see in the night sky. The dot on the right,
Output: giant ball of glowing gas that is very hot