Well, I’m back from the visit to the preview of the Griffith Observatory that I mentioned to you I was going to. It was a rather good visit. They organised it well, and -boy!- have they done a great job on the restorations! I’ll try and assemble the several pictures that I took into some sort of narrative for you, and report soon. While you wait, here’s one of my favourites:
This is particularly poignant, in my opinion. The children are looking at the lovely exhibit of the life stages of stars. You can just see the line of what is called the “Main Sequence”, a line [along] on which most stars [move through their life] end up for most of their life, on a “Hertzsprung-Russell” chart of colour/temperature horizontally vs brightness/luminosity vertically. Here’s a nice chat about the lives of the stars at NASA.
I’m a sucker when it comes to pictures of children learning… I don’t know why.
-cvj
(A commenter called “supernova” correctly refined my statements above. Thanks!)
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A fair quibble. You said it better…. and you would know, Supernova!
-cvj
a line along which most stars move through their life
Just to quibble… most stars don’t move along the main sequence during their lives. They may evolve toward it in their early life stages, and away from it as they age, but during the core hydrogen-burning phase, they pretty much stay in the same spot on the line.
In any case, it’s a very cool display and a very cool picture of kids getting into it! Look forward to hearing more about the new Griffith Observatory.
You just gave me a flashback to reading about the life stages of the stars in a book when I was a kid. I used to know a *lot* more than I do now about astronomy.
I’m a sucker when it comes to pictures of children learning… I don’t know why
Perhaps because it is such a core human activity, as ancient as our species, and as singularly important as meeting our basic physiological needs. This picture is wonderful, showing the fascination with the heavens, another most ancient trait of our species. thanks
I need that display for my office!