STRUCTURE AND COMPOSITION

AND AGE OF THE UNIVERSE

INSTANT TASK

THE UNIVERSE
Direction: Match the descriptions to the pictures

A. THIS IS A COMET. A comet is ice and dust. When it goes near the sun it forms a tail
B. THIS IS A PLANET. Sometimes we can see a planet in the sky. It doesn’t twinkle like a star.
C. THIS IS A METEOR. A meteor is a piece of rock. When it comes near the Earth, it burns.
We can see bright lights.
D. THIS IS A GALAXY. A galaxy has got a lot of stars. Our galaxy is called Milky Way.
E. THIS IS A MOON. A moon is a satellite. There is no air on the moon. Other planet such
Jupiter also have satellites.
F. THIS IS A STAR. Stars are made of burning gas. They appear to twinkle when seen from
the earth surface.

SAN PEDRO RELOCATION CENTER NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL – SCIENCE DEPARTMENT © 2016
 DIRECT TALK
Structure, Composition, and Age
•The universe as we currently know it comprises all space and time, and all matter and
energy in it.
•It is made of 4.6% baryonic matter (“ordinary” matter consisting of protons, electrons,
and neutrons: atoms, planets, stars, galaxies, nebulae, and other bodies), 24% cold dark
matter (matter that has gravity but does not emit light), and 71.4% dark energy (a source
of anti-gravity)
•Dark matter can explain what may be holding galaxies together for the reason that the
low total mass is insufficient for gravity alone to do so while dark energy can explain the
observed accelerating expansion of the universe.

Lesson discuss
 Hydrogen, helium, and lithium are the three most abundant elements.
 Stars - the building block of galaxies-are born out of clouds of gas and dust in galaxies.
Instabilities within the clouds eventually results into gravitational collapse, rotation,
heating up, and transformation into a protostar-the hot core of a future star as
thermonuclear reactions set in.
 Stellar interiors are like furnaces where elements are synthesized or combined/fused
together. Most stars such as the Sun belong to the so-called “main sequence stars.” In
the cores of such stars, hydrogen atoms are fused through thermonuclear reactions
to make helium atoms. Massive main sequence stars burn up their hydrogen faster
than smaller stars. Stars like our Sun burn up hydrogen in about 10 billion years.


QUICK
CONNECT
There Are at Least 10 Billion Trillion Stars in FLASH GAUGE
the Universe
That’s a very big number. When you really
think about it, 10 billion trillion stars make the
cult of sun worship seem a little obsolete, Answer the following correctly on your paper.
although our star, the sun, is very important to
us. Without it, life on earth wouldn’t be
possible.
1. It is an ordinary” matter consisting of
Let’s put 10 billion trillion stars into protons, electrons, and neutrons:
perspective, shall we? For those of you who atoms, planets, stars, galaxies, nebulae,
know a bit of math, that would be 10 to the
power of 22 stars, or written out, it would be and other bodies.
10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. There are A. Baryonic matter
probably more stars in existence than grains of
B. Dark matter
sand on all of the world’s beaches. If only 1% of
those stars had Earth-like planets, the universe C. Protostar
would literally be teeming with life.
2. The building block of galaxies-are born
out of clouds of gas and dust in galaxies.
A. Sun
B. Thermonuclear reaction
C. Star
REFERENCES
3. Hydrogen atoms are fused through
The Origin of the Universe, Earth, and Life." National
Academy of Sciences. Science and Creationism: A View from thermonuclear reactions to make
the National Academy _____________.
of Sciences, Second Edition. Washington, DC: l Academies
Press, 1999. http://www.nap.edu/read/6024/chapter/3#8

SAN PEDRO RELOCATION CENTER NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL – SCIENCE DEPARTMENT © 2016