ELA Day 5 Exit Ticket "Stars that Aren't Round" [Week of 3.1]

How flat is Regulus compared with other stars?

How bright is Regulus compared with Altair?

How far is Leo the Lion from the Sun?

How many stars make up the constellation Leo the Lion?

by comparison and contrast

in chronological order

as problem and solution

as a list of ordered steps

It spins around very quickly.

It looks similar to the Sun.

It has no mass at all.

It is too far away to see with a telescope.

In recent years, astronomers have discovered several squooshed stars.

The Sun is round because it has lots of mass.

But even stars with lots of mass can spin so fast they're not round.

Long ago, telescopes revealed that Regulus spins fast.

Regulus is 79 light-years from Earth. . . . But it gives off lots of light, so you can see it without using a telescope.

Long ago, telescopes revealed that Regulus spins fast. Harold McAlister, an astronomer at Georgia State University, wondered if the star might not be round.

An interferometer combines light from more than one telescope to see stars super clearly. . . . In 2004, McAlister and his colleagues used an interferometer that combinedlight from six telescopes atop Mount Wilson in California.

Instead, its width is greater than its height. The distance from one side of the star to the other (at the equator) is a lot more than the distance from the "top" to the "bottom"(from the north pole to the south pole).

"like a beach ball that someone sat on" (paragraph 3)

"the Sun has lots of gravity, which holds the Sun together" (paragraph 4)

"its width is greater than its height" (paragraph 10)

"Achernar is the flattest star known" (paragraph 12)

paragraph 3

paragraph 5

paragraph 11

paragraph 12