Lives of Stars, TheAges: 9–12 Grades: 4–6 Pages: 72 List Price: 19.95 Cover: Hardcover Published: 9/1/2009 ISBN: 1-59078-582-7 ISBN-13: 978-1-59078-582-9 |
The fiery birth, explosive death, and strange afterlife of every sun. Scientists have discovered a tremendous variety of star types, each with a fascinating biography and a strange fate in store. Born in a cloud of gas and dust, a new star is ignited by the explosion of a dying star nearby. A star such as our Sun has a long life. Over billions of years, it burns yellow, then red, as it uses up its nuclear fuel. It then throws much of its material into the universe in a planetary nebula one of the most spectacular sights in space. After the nebula disperses, the hot core of the dead star remains: it s called a white dwarf. A bigger star lives fast and dies young, burning a blue-white and finally exploding in a supernova. What remains may be a black hole, a neutron star, or a pulsar--a neutron star emitting beams of deadly radiation. Using the most beautiful photos of space objects available, Harvard-trained astronomer Ken Croswell leads a tour of the stars the young, the aging, and the dead but still active. Reviews"Ken Croswell's The Lives of the Stars is a wonderful astronomy book for young people--for anyone for that matter. Well written, beautifully illustrated, it takes sophisticated modern concepts and makes then clearly accessible. I wish I could have had a book like this one when I was young." "This is a great book for the astronomy enthusiast. If you’re beyond the basics and want to talk about astronomy the way astronomers do, then this is the book for you." "A veteran stargazer pairs a meaty disquisition on stellar types and life cycles to page-filling photos and artistic visions of stars and nebulae. . . . A stellar picture of what we know or guess about those distant lights." |
