51 Fascinating Facts About Stars For You To Wonder About In the Night

The night sky is full of stars, you can see from the brightest star to the giant star, in fact, most stars that we see in the sky at night are much bigger and brighter than the sun.

The stars that we see from the naked eye sometimes look different in color. Some may come off as red and others as blue, although as presumed by humans generally, red is considered hot, and blue is considered to be cool.

The same is not the case with stars, a star that looks blue in color is the hottest star. Red stars are the coolest stars.

When the temperature changes in the sky, the color of the star generally changes to white and then blue. Almost every star that we see is a black body, which counts the neutron star, giant stars, and binary stars as well.

All of these stars are black bodies, which means they are capable of observing around 100 percent of the radiations that fall on them. This is also the reason why some stars grow giant.

Fun facts About Stars

All stars are unique, the way one star behaves makes the star different from the other stars.

• Some stars are filled with large elements and a large amount of hydrogen and they accumulate dust as well, which makes them massive in size. This is the reason why they are different.
• We can also see a difference between stars depending on their brightness, known as their luminosity.
• The brightest star is using more energy and is probably very big and have a huge mass.
• Stars are different in color as well. Since all of them have different temperatures they have different colors.
• Stars that are hot, appear white or blue, those which are cool appear red. Although, regardless of famous beliefs no star is green in color and green color stars don't exist.
• Many people don't understand the signature definition of a star and thus question the position of the sun as a star. A star is basically a body that produces its own energy through repetitive nuclear fusion inside itself, the sun also does one similar such thing.
• The sun also performs the fusion of helium and turns it into hydrogen, which is also known as the fuel of the star. Hence, as the sun produces its own energy or otherwise known as fuel, it's known as a star.
• The night sky and earth's atmosphere at night are illuminated by countless bright stars, however, some stars are more common than others. The red dwarf stars are the most common kind of stars in our space.
• The closest star to the earth is the sun, after which the closest star is Alpha Centauri. Other kinds of common stars are the orange dwarfs and the supergiant stars as well.
• The stars that we see in the night sky are some million light-years away from us, the nearest star being the sun.
• To understand these stars better we have divided them into groups, which are known as constellations and asterism.
• Stars exist as a result of nuclear fusion, in earlier times stars were much more important than they are today.
• Stars are those heavenly bodies that used to tell the direction to people in the older times. Since stars travel, it helped people in the earlier times to get a better sense of direction through the position of the stars. Thus, that's why it's important to have stars in the sky.
• One of the important stars we have is our sun, with the help of a star's light life on earth can exist and prosper.
• Studying stars such as the neutron stars, and other stars which are a million light-years away from the earth, used to be difficult in earlier times. However, now with the help of telescopes, it's easier to study not just stars but also galaxies and space even on dark nights without a moon.
• All of these stars are very different from one another, from the naked eye most stars look similar to one another, but, in reality, are very different.
• Stars of all kinds are a result of nuclear fusion, and hence they are all born in different conditions and travel different paths they have different masses as well.
• Stars vary in mass, size, and in temperature. If a star is large in mass, it will be hotter and will burn more, as a result, the largest stars use their nuclear fuel more rapidly and hence they have a shorter lifespan.
• A star that is small burns its fuel with less rate and that star lives more.

Shocking Facts About Stars

Our galaxy is a constant work in progress, it sees stars taking birth and stars dying on a regular basis. The stars that are just formed or have just been born are known as protostars.

• These protostars are tiny clouds of space dust and the gas which roams in the universe.
• Many stars are born small and they absorb the gas and energy in the universe and turn big. Our sun also started its journey in a similar way. although, some stars are born huge.
• This universe is filled with galaxies and each galaxy has a solar system. Our galaxy is called the milky way and the sun belongs to this galaxy.
• There are thousands and millions of galaxies in this universe. Talking about our galaxy, if the assumptions by researchers are correct then we have around 100 thousand million stars in the Milkyway galaxy. Although, we can't see all of them, many people choose to believe that we can see a million stars in the sky. The same is not true, we cannot see more than 2000-5000 stars at the same time. Since all of them are of different sizes and are situated at different distances, it's impossible to see millions of stars in the night sky.

Facts About Stars In The Milky Way

As the definition of a star goes, a star is a celestial body that produces its own fuel, which is essential for a star to live. As soon as a star exhausts its fuel it will die.

• These heavily bodies are a million light-years away from us and we can't know about their death the second they die.
• Since they are very far from us, we get to know about the death of a star only after several decades.
• These heavenly bodies are made of hydrogen and helium, which helps the star produce light fusion.
• The fusion occurs in the core of the star and the cores of some stars are of iron and other such elements. Both hydrogen and helium are around 98% of the star contents.
• Once a star dies, the dead star converts into a white dwarf.
• Stars which are eight times the sun's mass die with a supernova in the solar system.
• Not all stars die with a supernova, as mentioned earlier some just convert into a white dwarf.
• Stars observe a lot of radiation from the universe, however, they also reflect equal or more quantity of radiation back into space.
• Since the star birth is the collision of clouds and dust under the influence of gravity, they grow bigger year after year as they consume the energy around them. This also makes them shine brighter.
• As soon as the star exhausts its fuel, it dies, which is also known as the dying star.
• Dying stars are very common in the galaxy, a star is born through nuclear fusion and dies when it exhausts its nuclear fuel. It's also known that massive stars die quicker than smaller stars.

Facts About Newly Discovered Stars

As the famous beliefs around the shooting star go, a shooting star is basically a star dying. But this is not true, we cannot see a star dying and a shooting star is not even a star.

• The universe is filled with dust and rocks which are constantly moving. A shooting star is basically a piece of rock or dust that is traveling, it is not related to a star and is not even a star.
• Massive stars such as the sun are the most essential elements of survival on earth.
• The energy which comes from a star in form of light is essential for organisms to live. These stars allow plants to grow, which releases oxygen which supports human and animal life. Thus, stars and the existence of life go hand in hand and they are very important for the existence of life.
• Apart from that stars are important since they helped humans from ancient times to navigate their way on earth.
• The position of stars is also important for astrological reasons according to some beliefs. However, the most important use of stars in the olden time was to get a better hold of directions.

Facts About Constellations

Stars are born when clouds and dust scatter under the influence of gravity, they are also the result of turbulence which can occur in these dust clouds which travel in the universe.

• The lifespan of a star depends very much on its mass.
• A star of greater mass lives a shorter life, whereas a star of lesser mass lives long.
• The lifespan of the sun is about 10 billion years, whereas if we take for example a star that is almost 20 times bigger than the sun, then the star will only live up to 10 million years.
• We have grouped stars into constellations to study and understand them better.
• A constellation is nothing but a group of stars. Sometimes these groups of stars form some patterns.
• During the earlier times, the Greeks divided the sky into 80 plus different constellations.
• Although, not all of these constellations are visible just through the naked eye. An example of a famous constellation that we have in our sky is the Orion constellation.
• The Orion, however, is known to be the most visible constellation, you can see it from anywhere in the world.
• The brightest stars from this Orion are known to be Betelgeuse and Rigel.
• Ursa major is another such famous constellation, however, unlike the Orion, we cannot see Ursa major just from anywhere.
• Ursa minor is located just beside the Ursa major, one can see these only from the northern hemisphere and they form the pattern of a small ladle.