Stellar Astronomy Topic

The Sun

Concept 3 demos

Coronal Mass Ejection

Uses an air vortex to illustrate the directional nature of coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Students learn that only objects directly in a CME's path are affected, explaining why most solar …

Projected image of a clear incandescent bulb on the overhead projector, with the filament and support wires visible as dark lines against the bright projected background

Sunspot Model

Demonstrates why sunspots appear dark despite being at ~4000 K — hot enough to outshine the full moon. A glowing filament appears bright in darkness but dark against a brighter …

Bowling ball on a transparent air gyroscope base with compressed air hose connected; a Mini Maglite is inserted into a finger hole at the top

Pulsar Model

A spinning bowling ball with an embedded flashlight models the lighthouse effect of a pulsar. Students see how a misaligned beam on a rotating object produces periodic flashes, connecting to …

Stellar Evolution

Concept 3 demos

Gray metal stool on a wooden rotating platform, with two blue-handled flashlights inserted through holes in the stool seat

Rotating Table Pulsar

Models a pulsar's lighthouse effect using rotating flashlights. Students learn that pulsars emit continuously but appear to pulse because their beamed radiation sweeps past Earth's line of sight — a …

Red Giant

Illustrates the dramatic size changes during stellar evolution using scaled physical objects: a 1-meter weather balloon (red giant), a marble (Sun), and a ballpoint pen tip (white dwarf). Students see …

Clear shallow glass bowl, transparent plastic pitcher of water, and a tin of ground black pepper on a gray surface

Motion in Interstellar Clouds

Pepper sprinkled on freshly poured water exhibits random motion that quickly organizes into coherent rotation, modeling how interstellar gas clouds develop net angular momentum from initially disordered motion. Illustrates the …

Black Holes

Concept 3 demos

Two pink Silly Putty figures on a gray surface: a short, proportionate figure with bowler hat and smile (left) and the same figure stretched tall and thin (right)

Spaghettification

Demonstrates spaghettification — the stretching of objects by tidal forces near a black hole. Students see how differential gravity across an extended body produces elongation along the radial direction and …

Neoprene sheet with yellow dot grid stretched between bicycle wheel rims with spring clamps, marble launcher held at right, colored marbles and foam-tipped rod on sheet

Singularity

A stretched rubber sheet provides a 2D analog of spacetime curvature from General Relativity. Students observe marbles traveling straight lines on a flat sheet, then curved geodesic paths when the …

Black spandex sheet with white dot grid stretched between bike wheel rims, with a glass marble at center creating a depression and a wooden triangular launcher at the left edge; colored marbles are scattered on the sheet

Gravitational Lensing

Marbles rolling across a stretched rubber sheet demonstrate how massive objects curve spacetime and deflect light paths. Students observe that deeper curvature (heavier central mass) produces stronger deflection, and that …

Stellar Miscellaneous

Concept 1 demo

Glass bowls of various sizes containing sorted colored marbles — clear, yellow-green, orange, and blue-purple — with a small beaker of mixed marbles and a white mesh bag holding marbles

Stellar Generations

Models stellar nucleosynthesis using colored marbles to show how successive generations of stars enrich the interstellar medium with heavier elements. Students see why our Sun contains ~2% heavy elements — …