Faint or Far? Why Do Faraway Stars Look So Dim?
Sim Lesson
Students use the Faint or Far? simulation to fly Voyager 1 away from the Sun and watch its apparent size and brightness shrink with distance, until it looks like just another star. Lesson Purpose Students often think a star is dim because it is small, not because it is far. Watching our own Sun fade with distance builds the idea that how bright a star looks depends on how far away it is.
At night the stars look like tiny, faint points of light, but many are giant suns like ours. Our Sun looks huge and bright only because it is close. What happens to how a light looks as you move far away from it? In this lesson, you will use the Faint or Far? simulation to fly away from the Sun and watch how it looks from farther and farther out.
Topics and standards: Science, Solar System, Earth Science, Astronomy, Simulation, Earth in Space, Universe & Stars, Grades 3-5, 5-ESS1-1, Earth Systems, 5-ESS1-1, 3.3.5.A