Stars Crash Course

What are the two opposing forces that keep stars between collapsing and inflating?

• centripetal force and electron degeneracy force
• centripetal force and the pressure of hot gasses
• gravity and electron degeneracy force
• gravity and the pressure of hot gasses

Hydrogen fusion makes helium. "Triple-alpha" helium fusion makes ___

• lithium
• boron
• carbon
• sulfur

Carbon will fuse in the core of a star that has more relative mass than ___

• about four times the Sun's mass
• about eight times the Sun's mass
• about 18 times the Sun's mass
• about 40 times the Sun's mass

If a star has more than about eight times the Sun's mass, it can fuse carbon into ___

• neon, magnesium and some sodium
• oxygen, magnesium and some sodium
• neon, oxygen and some sodium
• neon, magnesium and some oxygen

A star becomes a ticking time-bomb once silicon starts fusing into ___

• calcium
• cadmium
• iron
• lead

When helium fusion begins, a massive, blue, main sequence star will become ___

• a red dwarf
• a blue dwarf
• a blue giant
• a red super giant

Which bright star, in the constellation Orion, is a red super giant?

• Rigel
• Betelgeuse
• Bellatrix
• Saiph

VY Canis Majoris, the largest known star, is two billion km across and is classified as ___

• a hypergoliath
• a mega-titan
• a hypergiant
• a mega-leviathan

The core of a supergiant star looks like an onion because it has ___

• white inner layers
• a brown outer layer
• multiple layers
• a bulb shape

The Sun can fuse hydrogen for over ten billion years, while a star twice as massive runs out of hydrogen in ___

• two billion years
• five billion years
• the same amount of time
• twenty billion years