1. Nebulae A nebula is a cloud of dust, gas and plasma. The material clumps together to form larger masses that eventually are big enough to form a protostar. This is the first stage in the star life cycle. Nebulae often create star-forming regions, such as the Eagle Nebula.

2. Eagle Nebula – Pillars of Creation

3. Cat’s Eye Nebula

4. Ant Nebula

5. Crab Nebula

6. Protostar- a new star is born

7. Brown Dwarf have a size between that of a giant planet like Jupiter and that of a small star any object 15 to 75 times the mass of Jupiter called "failed stars" all are parts of a binary system. (two stars orbit around one another) possible that brown dwarfs represent a lot of the mass in the universe

8. Main Sequence Star (our sun)

9. Red Giant When a middle aged star begins to die, the temperature near the center rises. The star expands. This will happen to our sun in about 5 billion years.

10. Once the red giant runs out of energy, it collapses and becomes a white dwarf, a small and dense star. A white dwarf is the center of the original star. It is very hot and cools down over the next billion years.

11. White Dwarf - star near the end of its life - was a red giant star that lost its outer atmosphere

12. Black Dwarf – a white dwarf that has cooled, lost its energy and no longer gives off light. It is a black object in space.

13. Giant Stars are more luminous than our sun and are 10 to 100 times larger in diameter than our sun.

14. Supergiant Stars are more luminous than giant stars and more than 100 times the diameter of our sun. They are relatively cool stars. Betelgeuse is a supergiant star.

15. Supernova – collapse of the center of a red giant star produces a shock wave that blasts the star’s outer layers into space

16. Remains from a supernova

17. Neutron Star – the center left behind after a star’s supernova explosion

18. Pulsar – a neutron star that spins very fast and emits burst of radio waves

19. Black Hole An object with so much gravity and that is so dense, light cannot escape Most massive stars become black holes when they die Quasars are galaxies with black holes at their center. The Milky Way Galaxy is a quasar!

20. The life cycle of a star depends on its mass