Science Project on “Shooting Stars”, Project Experiment Topics on Outer Space for Class 8, 9, 10 and 12 Students.

Shooting Stars

Materials Required:

1. A clear dark night, on one of the evening, provided in the chart
2. A bag of dry navy beans
3. A bowl
4. A watch

People generally refer to them as falling stars or shooting stars, but the proper term to be used for them are ” Meteors”.

A Meteor is a substance, probably a piece of rock or ice that has been travelling in space for quite sometime and has just entered the earth’s atmosphere.

The sizes of these meteors can vary: The reason as to why these meteors look like streaks of light in the sky is the friction that burns them, once they enter the earth’s atmosphere. All meteors however do not burn up in the atmosphere. These instances occur mostly with the large ones, which finally fall on the earth’s surface. The meteors that finally come and land on the earth are re-termed as Meteorites.

The number of meteorites are also very little, as only 18 meteorites are approximately found on the earth and some of those must have landed, quite some time back.

You can usually see these meteors flashing in the sky, from time to time. There are also times, when you have a much better chance of watching these meteors.

This instance is known as a “meteor shower”. Some meteor showers also have names and people can see them at the same time every year because of the earth’s movement through the same path in space.

The origins of these meteors are not always known. For instance, the Taurids shower which generally takes place around the 4th of November every year, is considered to be part of the tail of “Encke’s Comet”.

There could also be some meteors which are part of a broken-up asteroid or some particles that were blown up into space, from the surface of the moon or the planet Mars. On a clear night, move outdoors and lie down somewhere, so that you can see the sky. If you decide to go on one of the dates of a meteor shower, carry a bowl with you and some dried up navy beans, so that each time you see a meteor, you can drop a navy bean into the bowl.

At the end of the show, you can actually count out and see how many meteors were witnessed by you.

The Creation of Stars

As we look up in the night sky we see close to 3,000 different stars. They seem small but that is because of the distance, in reality they are as big as our Sun, some even bigger.

Stars are generally born in clusters and are formed from thin clouds of hydrogen gas. As these clouds shrink, the hydrogen they contain gets compressed which increases the temperature and soon the gas becomes so hot that it begins to glow, thus a star is born and it begins to emit light.

As the star glows the hydrogen gets converted to helium, this allows the star to give out heat. At the end of their life when their hydrogen is exhausted the stars explode forming what is called a ‘Supernova’. Supernovas are nothing but the wreckage of stars which continue to glow for some more time.

The Crab Nebula is the supernova of a star which exploded and died way back in time. Star formation and destruction is a constantly ongoing process.