**Beaver Pride Campus News – By Dakota Monroe**
Good evening, Woodcrest! This is Dakota Monroe with your campus update, reporting from today’s Astronomy 101 lecture.
In class, we focused on one of the most fascinating parts of our universe: **stars and their life cycles**. Professor Ravenwood broke down how stars are born from giant clouds of gas and dust—these are called *protostars*. Over time, gravity pulls the material closer together until the core heats up, and a star officially takes shape.
We also learned that not all stars are the same. There are small stars, like red dwarfs, that burn slowly and live for billions of years, and there are massive stars, which shine brighter but burn out faster. What makes a star increase or decrease in size comes down to how much fuel—mostly hydrogen—it has left. When a star runs low, it can expand into a red giant or shrink into a dense white dwarf, depending on its mass.
It’s incredible to think that the same stars we see scattered across the night sky each have their own story, their own beginning and end. And who knows? Maybe one of us in this class will go on to study them even closer.
After class ended I asked Professor Ravenwood a few insightful questions.
Dakota : “what do you like most about astronomy?”
Prof. Ravenwood : “That’s a difficult question… I’m a real Astronomy enthusiast and each of these fields of study has beautiful things to say. I’m mainly an Astro Physicist. But… to say what I prefer… Everything, the universe has so many secrets to reveal to us”
Dakota: i feel the same way professor , i truly love everything about the unknown and whats yet to be explored.”
Dakota: “Did you like the interactions in class today?”
Prof. Ravenwood: “Yes, I like it when students react. It’s sometimes complicated to explain the physics of the universe in a simple way. So I try to interact with my students as much as possible.”
Dakota: “Agreed”
Dakota:”can i get any details about the next class?
Prof. Ravenwood: “The next lesson will focus on the classification of stars, and more specifically on the Harvard classification.”
Dakota: “thank you so much for your time professor it is much appreciated”
This has been Dakota Monroe, first-year reporter for *The Beaver Pride*. Thanks for tuning in, and remember to keep looking up—there’s a whole universe waiting above us.