ExploraTour - How to Build a Star


Click on image to see a hydrogen bomb explosion.
David Kozyra, Acro Photographics, Ann Arbor, MI (

To understand how things work sometimes you have to take them apart and look inside. We can't really look inside of a star but we can try to imagine what it might be like. Let's start with looking for the source of a star's power.

A lot of things in your house need power to run. Your remote control cars need batteries. Your radio needs to be plugged into the wall because it runs on electricity. Stars are very different from anything you've seen on Earth. Stars work by changing matter into energy. That's right ... the stuff that makes up all of the things on Earth is changed into energy (heat and light) inside of a star!

It just takes a little matter to make a whole lot of energy. Look at the jellybean in the picture. If all the matter in that jellybean were changed into energy there would be a very big explosion -- big enough to blow up a small island.


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Windows to the Universe, a project of the National Earth Science Teachers Association, is sponsored in part is sponsored in part through grants from federal agencies (NASA and NOAA), and partnerships with affiliated organizations, including the American Geophysical Union, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Earth System Information Partnership, the American Meteorological Society, the National Center for Science Education, and TERC. The American Geophysical Union and the American Geosciences Institute are Windows to the Universe Founding Partners. NESTA welcomes new Institutional Affiliates in support of our ongoing programs, as well as collaborations on new projects. Contact NESTA for more information. NASA ESIP NCSE HHMI AGU AGI AMS NOAA