ExploraTour: A Peek into the Lives of the Stars

About 4 and a half billions years ago something interesting happened in space. The sun turned on at the center of a cloud of gas and dust. The rest is history.

We now know that the sun and other stars are born in dust clouds deep in outer space. As they get older they get redder and swell to many times their original size. Finally they end in incredible explosions that leave behind very strange objects.

And that is not all. Most atoms, the tiny particles that make up everything on Earth, including you, are made in stars and in the explosion of stars.

How about that . . . you are from outer space after all!

Click ahead to find out more.

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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