176 For Further Exploration: Stars from Adolescence to Old Age
Articles
Balick, B. & Frank, A. “The Extraordinary Deaths of Ordinary Stars.” Scientific American (July 2004): 50. About planetary nebulae, the last gasps of low-mass stars, and the future of our own Sun.
Djorgovsky, G. “The Dynamic Lives of Globular Clusters.” Sky & Telescope (October 1998): 38. Cluster evolution and blue straggler stars.
Frank, A. “Angry Giants of the Universe.” Astronomy (October 1997): 32. On luminous blue variables like Eta Carinae.
Garlick, M. “The Fate of the Earth.” Sky & Telescope (October 2002): 30. What will happen when our Sun becomes a red giant.
Harris, W. & Webb, J. “Life Inside a Globular Cluster.” Astronomy (July 2014): 18. What would night sky be like there?
Iben, I. & Tutokov, A. “The Lives of the Stars: From Birth to Death and Beyond.” Sky & Telescope (December 1997): 36.
Kaler, J. “The Largest Stars in the Galaxy.” Astronomy (October 1990): 30. On red supergiants.
Kalirai, J. “New Light on Our Sun’s Fate.” Astronomy (February 2014): 44. What will happen to stars like our Sun between the main sequence and the white dwarf stages.
Kwok, S. “What Is the Real Shape of the Ring Nebula?” Sky & Telescope (July 2000): 33. On seeing planetary nebulae from different angles.
Kwok, S. “Stellar Metamorphosis.” Sky & Telescope (October 1998): 30. How planetary nebulae form.
Stahler, S. “The Inner Life of Star Clusters.” Scientific American (March 2013): 44–49. How all stars are born in clusters, but different clusters evolve differently.
Subinsky, R. “All About 47 Tucanae.” Astronomy (September 2014): 66. What we know about this globular cluster and how to see it.
Websites
- BBC Page on Giant Stars: Includes basic information and links to brief video excerpts.
- Encylopedia Brittanica Article on Star Clusters: Written by astronomer Helen Sawyer Hogg-Priestley.
- Hubble Image Gallery: Planetary Nebulae: Click on each image to go to a page with more information available. (See also a similar gallery at the National Optical Astronomy Observatories: https://www.noao.edu/image_gallery/planetary_nebulae.html).
- Hubble Image Gallery: Star Clusters: Each image comes with an explanatory caption when you click on it. (See also a similar European Southern Observatory Gallery at: https://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/category/starclusters/).
- Measuring the Age of a Star Cluster: From Penn State.
Videos
Life Cycle of Stars: Short summary of stellar evolution from the Institute of Physics in Great Britain, with astronomer Tim O’Brien (4:58).
Missions Take an Unparalleled Look into Superstar Eta Carinae: NASA Goddard video about observations in 2014 and what we know about the pair of stars in this complicated system (4:00).
Star Clusters: Open and Globular Clusters: Three Short Hubblecast Videos from 2007–2008 on discoveries involving star clusters (12:24).
Tour of Planetary Nebula NGC 5189: Brief Hubblecast episode with Joe Liske, explaining planetary nebulae in general and one example in particular (5:22).