A Star is Born

Nebula: Hi! I'm the nebula! I�m a cloud of dust and gas. The gas is mainly hydrogen and helium. I'm the mom of the universe. I�m just like a galaxy hospital. My most favorite children are Betelgeuse, Rigel, Sirius, the pointer stars, Polaris, the Earth's sun, and Castor and Pollux. I have so many babies I'm already going through my mid-life crisis. A lot of my babies are 200 million years old! Hey - don't get the wrong idea - I was really young when I had the Earth's sun.

Yellow Dwarf (Annie Karisny) describes herself for the audience.

Yellow Dwarf: I am a yellow dwarf, also known as the Earth's sun, the middle child, and always forgotten, I am 27,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit. I am also made of gasses. I got my name from my dad who called me sun. I am 860,000 times bigger than the Earth. I am 93 million miles from Earth, so I am the closest star to it. The next closest star Is 25 trillion miles away. Well, I gotta go - it's morning in the Southern Hemisphere.

Red Giant: I am a Red Giant! I can be between 40 and 50 million miles across. If I were in the middle of our solar system, I could swallow up Mercury, Venue, Earth, and Mars, all in one sitting! My cousin, Betelgeuse, is a red supergiant! He�s a lot bigger than me - 250 million miles across. Someday, I might be as big as Betelgeuse, but I am too young to be that big. I better get back to the sky to finish my job of brightening up the night.

Betelgeuse: My name is Betelgeuse, I am a red supergiant. I am the bright red star in the upper left of the Orion constellation. I am so big, I could destroy all and more of our solar system! I stretch to about 2,90 million miles across! But just like other stars, I will follow the path of death - I am so big, I will probably become a black hole. You'll hear more about that later. I am an immense star, 300 light years away from Earth.

White Dwarf: I am a white dwarf star. When I get mad, I explode, get brighter, and become a nova. When I get depressed, I cool down and become a black dwarf, so I'm basically a dead dwarf. I try to stay happy, but it's hard when you're an old fogie like me! I know it's not very pleasant to think about, but I'm about to curl up and die! Yawn. Looks like it's time for my afternoon nap.

Nova:My name is Nova. Sometimes my friends, the White Dwarfs, explode, and then turn into a star, just like me! People long ago thought I was a cute, bright baby, so they named me nova, which means new. I feel like a new year - out with the old, in with the new.

Supernova: I am SUPERNOVAI ! only appear every few hundred years. Sometimes, my star flares become millions of times brighter than normal! A long time ago, in 1054, a Chinese astronomer saw my brother who was in the constellation of Taurus. One second of my energy could be used to supply electricity for the whole Earth for the next billion years.

Black Hole: I am a Black Hole! Black holes are the most mysterious things in the universe. Scientists don't have any real proof that they are there. The only reason scientists think that they are there is because of the companion star. The black hole will pull and pull on the gasses from its companion star, which makes the black hole grow. By the way, black holes are stars that are squeezed out of existence. Some people believe that you would get stretched if you went into one. Others think that they lead to another universe. Still others believe that they lead back in time. Did you know that black holes are like huge vacuum cleaners that suck up everything? The gravitational pull of a black hole is so strong that not even light can escape it. Oh, it's time for my coffee break, so thanks.