This week, we have a TPL Kids website visitor who was probably gazing at the night sky and noticed some twinkly stars and wondered… how are stars made?
For this wonder, we looked to a reliable and authoritative source of information… NASA.
According to an article on NASA’s website: Stars are born within the clouds of dust and scattered throughout most galaxies. Turbulence deep within these clouds gives rise to knots with sufficient mass that the gas and dust can begin to collapse under its own gravitational attraction. As the cloud collapses, the material at the center begins to heat up. Known as a protostar, it is this hot core at the heart of the collapsing cloud that will one day become a star.
So, the next time you see a star, think about how many millions(!) of years it may have taken for that one star to form and how many millions(!) of years that star will be around for.