Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

How do I, in a visually intriguing or interactive way, demonstrate the life cycle of a star? By life cycle I mean from nebula to protostar to massive star to supergiant to supernova to black hole. This is due in 5 days so nothing that would take a long amount of time. It needs to show all the different stages and I'd love it if it was in motion and showed the contracting and expanding thanks

Hi Tibbe,

Welcome to the Ask an Expert forum. That's a very interesting area of astronomy and I understand what you mean about wanting to depict the stellar life cycle in a strongly visual way.

When I want images, I usual go to Google Images first and I came up with one which appeared several times. Here's just one link to it: http://starlifecycle205.weebly.com/a-st ... cycle.html

You may have already seen that image. It shows the life cycle from protostar to black hole as you said, but it doesn't have motion or sound.

Can I ask what your project is about that you need to show this? It sounds like you want to show the stellar evolution using a video or animation or with LEDs to really catch the viewer's attention and I think that's a cool idea. Is this part of a talk or demonstration? If you can show it as a powerpoint projected on a big screen then you can use video, animation, music--almost anything.

Send me a little more information and I will be able to help you better with your project. Thanks for using Sci Buddies.

SciB