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ACTIVITY: This Threshold Today

Purpose

This Threshold Today activities ask you to make connections between today’s world and the events of each threshold. Remember: Stars are born every day, even today.

Process

The second threshold in this course is the birth of the first stars. Until stars lit up, the Universe was relatively cold and dark. The intense heat and pressure and the energy generated by stars would lead to still more complexity, like planets and even life. This threshold is crossed over and over again, as new stars form continually all over the Universe. Scientists, and all of us, continue to learn more about the formation and the lives of stars.

You can join in this process by searching for news stories about the formation and the life cycles of stars. Use the This Threshold Today Worksheet PDF to record your sources and some of the details about what you discover. Check out Newsela.com for great articles, or look at the Pinterest board Newsela set up on this topic.

Here are some other links to help get you started:

For Further Discussion

What was the most interesting article you found? Share the link and what you found so interesting about it in the Questions Area below.

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weber
Posted 9 years ago. Direct link to weber's post “http://www.techtimes.com/...”
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/16010/20140919/the-milky-way-will-be-gobbled-up-in-5-billion-years-by-a-galactic-neighbor.htm

But by then our sun will be just a dwarf anyway.
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(2 votes)
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- Huckster05
  Posted 6 years ago. Direct link to Huckster05's post “yeah our star would be b...”
  yeah our star would be by then not that we would be able to see it we would be dead or long gone away
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Ava Gaughan
Posted 7 years ago. Direct link to Ava Gaughan's post “Headline / Title: Spectac...”
Headline / Title: Spectacular Sun Storm Sheds Light On Star Formation
Source / Date: https://www.yahoo.com/news/spectacular-sun-storm-sheds-light-star-formation-180833361.html?ref=gs | 6/22/16
Importance to this Threshold: On June 7, 2011, the sun blasted out a huge billow of superheated plasma, which is called a coronal mass ejection. Some of the material showered back down on the sun in a breathtaking display that researchers say is helping them understand how newborn stars slurp up plasma from their milieu.
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(1 vote)
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pine
Posted 2 years ago. Direct link to pine's post “Does anybody know how man...”
Does anybody know how many stars are being born and how many are dying every moment? Can we make any guesses?
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Sabrina Groom
Posted 7 years ago. Direct link to Sabrina Groom's post “http://science.time.com/2...”
http://science.time.com/2012/11/02/found-the-very-first-stars
This ones cool because it talks about the 1st stars.
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Michael
Posted 5 years ago. Direct link to Michael's post “https://www.huffingtonpos...”
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/10/monster-star-milky-way-photos_n_3573794.html

I found this one interesting because it shows that stars are smaller than I thought.
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Big History Project

Course: Big History Project > Unit 3

ACTIVITY: This Threshold Today

Purpose

Process

For Further Discussion

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