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Space GapFill

Target Level
4-5
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Attempt
1 of 3

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Stars are formed in huge clouds of gas and dust called  black holeswhite dwarfsnebulaemain sequence stars. These clouds are much denser than the vast majority of space, but are still much less dense than even the best vacuums ever created on Earth! Over time, these clouds can come together via  gravityfusionmagnetismrandom chance to create large masses such as asteroids, planets, moons and stars. If large enough, these large masses can become stars - but they are only protostars until the pressures and temperatures at their centres become high enough for the stars to start releasing energy via  fusion of light elementsmagnetismfission of heavy elementsdoing work. Once a star begins shining, it is considered a  nebulamain sequence starblack holewhite dwarf, where it spends most of its lifetime - our Sun is in this stage of its life cycle.
The next stage in a star's life cycle depends on the star's  colouragemassbrightness. Some, like our Sun, will become red giants, where they expand massively - when our Sun becomes a red giant billions of years in the future, it will become large enough to swallow Earth. Eventually these red giants shed their outer layers, leaving behind their hot core, known as a  neutron starwhite dwarfmain sequence starnebula - eventually these will cool down and stop glowing, but they are so hot that this takes longer than the current age of the universe, so no cooled-down cores like this yet exist!
Other stars become red supergiants, which are significantly larger than red giants. When these run out of all fuel, they collapse and then explode in what are known as  neutron starsmain sequence starsblack holessupernovae - these are the brightest objects in the universe, and the source of all the elements with  higher masses than ironlower masses than uraniumlower masses than leadhigher masses than uranium throughout the universe. The objects left over can be either  supernovaeneutron starsnebulaeblack holes, which are so dense that protons and electrons are forced together in their cores, or  black holessupernovaenebulaeneutron stars, which have such high gravity that nothing can escape them - not even light.
All of the objects in our solar system - suns, planets, moons and artificial satellites - move around each other in patterns known as  galaxiesorbitsretrogradesarcs, which are dictated by  magnetismfusionfissiongravity.
As scientists' understanding of the universe grew, they noticed something strange - stars and galaxies that were further away had wavelengths that were longer than expected, an effect known as  light stretchingred-shiftorbitingblue-shift. This implies that all of the galaxies are moving away from each other, and were once much closer together; called the  inflationred-shiftexpansionBig Bang theory. But there is still a lot for scientists to understand; many scientists believe we can only see around 5 % of all the mass and energy in the universe, with the rest being  hyperblackHiggsdark mass and energy.

This is your 1st attempt! You get 3 marks for each one you get right. Good luck!

Pass Mark
72%