Learning about Stars

Question: What are stars made of?
Answer: Stars are huge balls of glowing gas in the sky.

Question: How many stars are there in the universe?
Answer: There are over 200 billion, billion stars in the universe.

Question: Can you write the number 200 billion, billion?
Answer:

Question: Which star is closest to us on earth?
Answer: Our sun is the closest star to us.

Question: How far away is our sun?
Answer: Our sun is 93 million miles away from us.

Question: What is the next closest star to us?
Answer: The next closest star to us is not very close at all! It is a distance of more than 4 light years away.

Question: What is a galaxy?
Answer: A galaxy is a huge group of stars, planets, solar systems, dust, gas, and other things like asteroids that are held together by gravity. Galaxies can contain many millions of stars.

Question: What is the name of our galaxy?
Answer: Our galaxy is called the Milky Way.

Question: When people long ago looked up at the sky on a clear night, they imagined that they could make imaginary pictures by connecting the dots of stars. What are these star pictures called?
Answer: Star pictures are called constellations.

Question: What is Polaris?
Answer: Polaris is another name for the North Star. It is located at the end of the handle in the constellation called the Little Dipper. Although the Earth rotates, Polaris never seems to move. People use this star as a guide at night.

There are some very familiar constellations, like the ones listed below:

Big Dipper and Little Dipper website

Find the Big Dipper and Little Dipper here.
Can you connect the lines?

Find the Big Dipper here.
Can you connect the lines?

Find the Little Dipper here.
Can you connect the lines?

Scorpio website

Leo website

Sagittarius website

Gemini website

Questions:

1. A huge group of stars, solar systems, dust, gas, and other things is called a .

2. What are stars made of?

3. Which star is closest to us on Earth?

4. How far away is our sun?

5. What is a light year?

6. How many miles are there in a light year?

7. What is the name of the galaxy that our solar system is in?

8. What do we call an imaginary picture made of stars?

9. Which star never seems to move?

10. What is another name for the star you named above?