Realm of Space Science1
Realm of Space Science1
Man must rise above the Earthto the top of the atmosphere and beyondfor only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives.
Socrates
Syllabus of UPTU
EOE-034/EOE-044: SPACE SCIENCES 1. Introduction: Introduction to space science and applications, historical development 2. Solar System: Nebular theory of formation of our Solar System. Solar wind and nuclear reaction as the source of energy. Sun and Planets: Brief description about shape size, period of rotation about axis and period of revolution, distance of planets from sun, Bodes law, Keplers Laws of planetary motion, Newtons deductions from Keplers Laws, Newtons Law of gravitation, correction of Keplers third law, determination of mass of earth, determination of mass of planets with respect to earth. Brief description of Asteroids, Satellites and Comets. 3. Stars: Stellar spectra and structure, stellar evolution, nucleo-synthesis and formation of elements. Classification of stars: Harvard classification system, Hertzsprung-Russel diagram, Luminosity of star, variable stars; composite stars (white dwarfs, Neutron stars, black hole, star clusters, supernova and binary stars); Chandrasekhar limit. 4. Galaxies: Galaxies and their evolution and origin, active galaxies and quasars. 5. Creation of Universe:
Early history of the universe, Big-Bang and Hubble expansion model of the universe, cosmic microwave background radiation, dark matter and dark energy.
Preface
Over Last few decades there have been exciting times for science in general and space science in particular. We have been able to probe the dense atmosphere of Venus. We think we have discovered the dying glow of big bang that began the expansion of the universe. We have identified the gravitational lenses in space, and we think we have found the black holes. We are thrilled with the discoveries from our exploration of solar system to find the dry rivers on Mars, volcanoes on the Jupiters satellite Io, rings around Jupiter, hundred of ringlets around the Saturn. We are able to map more than a dozen of new worlds in orbits about the giant planets of solar system with each comparable to our own Moon. The spacecrafts Voyager I and II have crossed the heliosphere. Further, we have been able to probe deep into the space by Hubble telescope which provides us the beautiful pictures of the objects. I am pleased that the interest in space science has increased manifold in last couple of decades. People are becoming more fervent in their desire to understand as much as they can about the cosmos and they are aware what space science can offer to human perspective. What they are not aware of is the method of science- of the exacting procedure and rigid rules of the scientific method. It is here there is a gap in communications that exists between scientist and nonscientist. The communication gap become obvious, when we notice that many people, have turned to all manner of unreliable sources for their information to satisfy their thirst for knowledge. As a scientist, we have an obligation to the public to increase our efforts in presenting the honest views of science. We must show not only how the universe is, but also how, by simple rational processes, we can probe its mysteries. We know that science has no pipeline to absolute knowledge; it can only interpret observed facts in terms of rules that seem to be revealed by objective analysis, therefore, science also has limitations. The book is designed to cover the syllabus of the UPTU. Various celestial processes and objects are described in detail
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with illustrations to clear the confusion between science and pseudoscience and give better understanding to the students. I have avoided mathematics beyond the simplest algebra throughout the text and have tried to stress that the space science is very human endeavor that is related to those men and women who created the science. The book is divided into nine chapters; we introduce the subject of space science in chapter 1. Solar system is described in chapter 2. The sun, the planets and satellites are discussed in chapter 3. Chapter 4 deals with the various laws of celestial mechanic. In chapter 5 we study stars and their common features. Chapter 6 deals with Stellar Evolution, while Final Stage of Stellar Evolution is discussed in chapter 7. In chapter 8 galaxies and various galactic processes are discussed. Finally, in chapter 9 we discuss the origin, evolution and other aspects of the universe.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Mr. D. K. Gupta Founder cum Chairman, of Dr. R. N. Gupta Technical Education society and Anupama College of Engineering for his encouragement and allowing me to carry out this project, Dr. B. K. Gupta Secretary and Mr. Y. K. Gupta joint Secretary for their unflagging support. I would like express my appreciation to my friend Dr. V. K. Jain for motivating to write this book, careful reading of the manuscript and his comments which have done much to improve it. I acknowledge the inspiration and blessings of my respected father in law Mr. V. N. Sharma. Special thanks are due to my son Master Udbhav Garg whose many questions helped me to shape my thoughts properly. A brief paragraph here cannot suffice to express my gratitude to my wife Anju Garg and Brother in law Mr. Mayank Sharma who has joined me to bring up this book by reading, correcting, criticizing and trying to make it more meaningful to you all. Loving care by my daughter Miss Ishita Garg is deeply appreciated. Rajeev Garg
Dedicated to my Parents
Late Mr. R. S. Garg & Omwati Garg
Unit I
Chapter 1
Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 8 January 1642) was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism. Galileo has been called the "father of modern observational astronomy, " the "father of modern physics, " the "father of science," and "the father of Modern Science. Stephen Hawking says, "Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science."
Space Science
Four and half billion years ago, a rotating cloud of gaseous and dusty material on the fringes of Milky Way Galaxy flattens into disk, forming a star from the innermost matter. Collisions among dust particles orbiting a newly formed star, which humans call the sun, formed kilometer sized bodies called planetesimals, which in turn aggregated to form present day planets. On the third planet from the sun, several billions of years of evolution gave rise to a species of living beings equipped with intellectual capacity to speculate about the nature of the heavens above them. Thousands of years ago, on this small rocky planet orbiting the sun in an ordinary spiral galaxy ancestor looked up and wondered about
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their place between the earth and sky. In twenty-first century people ask same profound question about how the universe began and evolved, how people got here, where they are going and whether they are alone in the universe. After only blink of an eye in cosmic time scale, those questions are beginning to be answered. In the last 60 years, space probes and space observatories have played central role in the progress of human exploration and development in understanding of space which is augmented by manned spacecrafts and space stations acting as the carriers of space equipments. The seed of modern science began to sprout following the reformation. The 17th century German astronomer Johannes Kepler discovered for the first time certain simple mathematical rules that describe accurately the motions of the planets. His contemporary, the Italian physicist Galileo Galilei, discovered some other precise rules that described the behavior of bodies on the earth. Though the seeds of experimental science have been shown by certain of later Greek scholars, notably Archimedes, the practice of performing the experiments to learn the physical laws was not standard procedure even in Galileos time. Later in the same Seventeenth century, Isaac Newton showed that Keplers celestial rules and Galileos terrestrial ones are united by the same underlying Laws. Newton had the insight to recognize that the force that makes planets fall in ellipses about the sun and the force that makes apples fall with uniform acceleration near the earths surface are different manifestations of the same thing the gravitation. The speculation on the nature of the universe must date from prehistoric times. It is difficult to state definitely when the earliest observations of a more or less quantitative sort were made or when astronomy as a science began. Certainly in many of the civilizations the regularity of motions of celestial bodies was recognized, and attempts were made to keep the track of and predict celestial phenomenon. It was thought that there is sort of unity between the heavens and the earth. To be sure, in classical Greece the earth was thought to be composed of base stuff- the four elements, the earth, water, air and fire- and heavens of crystalline material, the planets
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were gods, in some early cultures. And gods, presumably, control or influence the human affairs. By understanding the regularity in the motions in the heavens Ancients quite naturally understand the motions of their planet gods; they better understood the individual lots of men and women and sought a unity between the earth and heavens through primitive religion of astrology. Ironically, today in twenty first century enlightenment, a large fraction of all people still believe in that ancient religion. Thus the astronomy - the science involved with the observation, explanation and measuring of objects in outer space, began to develop to fulfill the human thirst of knowledge about heavens initiating the development in space science. Astronomy compels the soul to look upward, and leads us from this world to another. Plato, The Republic, 342 BC What is Space? Space is the boundless, three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction. Physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of the boundless four-dimensional continuum known as spacetime. In mathematics one examines 'spaces' with different numbers of dimensions and with different underlying structures. The concept of space is considered to be of fundamental importance to an understanding of the physical universe although disagreement continues between philosophers over whether it is itself an entity, a relationship between entities, or part of a conceptual framework. Many of the philosophical questions arose in the 17th century, during the early development of classical mechanics. In Isaac Newton's view, space was absolute in the sense that it existed permanently and independently of whether there were any matter in the space. Other natural philosophers, notably Gottfried Leibniz, thought instead that space was a collection of relations between objects, given by their distance and direction
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from one another. In the 18th century, Immanuel Kant described space and time as elements of a systematic framework which humans use to structure their experience. In 1905, Albert Einstein published a paper on a special theory of relativity, in which he proposed that space and time be combined into a single construct known as spacetime. Thus we conclude that space is one of the few fundamental quantities in physics, meaning that it cannot be defined via other quantities because nothing more fundamental is known at the present. On the other hand, it can be related to other fundamental quantities. Thus, similar to other fundamental quantities (like time and mass); space can be explored via measurement and experiment. Today the space science is an all-encompassing term that describes all the various science fields that are concerned with the study of the Universe, generally also meaning "excluding the Earth" and "outside of the Earth's atmosphere". Originally, all of these fields were considered part of astronomy. However, in recent years the major sub-fields within astronomy, such as astrophysics, have grown so large that they are now considered separate fields on their own. There are eight overall categories that can generally be described on their own; Astrophysics, Galactic Science, Stellar Science, non-Earth Planetary Science, Biology of Other Planets, Astronautics/Space Travel, Space Colonization and Space Defense. The thrust in modern space science really began in 1946 when scientists first started to use balloons and sounding rockets to carry instruments to the outer fringes of the earths upper atmosphere. These efforts were followed by International Geophysical year in 1957-1958 when scientists planned to orbit satellites for their research. On October 4, 1957, when former Soviet Union launched sputnik-1 in the orbit, public reaction foster great efforts in space science by USA as an attempt to atone for cold war humiliation. As a result USA began to pour heretofore-undreamed resources into space science and hundreds of scientists shifted their research area to space science. In the year following World War II, the US scientific community turned its attention from the support of the war effort to
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scientific questions that has been the focus of attention before the war. The 1970 were the golden age of space science. In 1976 two Viking spacecrafts landed on the surface of the Mars and in 1977 two Voyager spacecrafts began their journey to Jupiter and Saturn and perhaps on to Uranus and Neptune.
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1.3
Recording photographic or similar images of the Earths surface from space is a well developed science, yet still expanding because of advances in the actual resolution of images taken from space or atmosphere and because of advances in digitizing and manipulating the images. Most of these advances are being applied to the cartography of space-located bodies, even though acquiring the original images of those bodies is extremely complicated and expensive, usually requiring long distance probes to carry the cameras. Visible matter in the universe is apparently organized geographically into structures with large amounts of space between
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them; the space between planets, the space between stars or the space between galaxies. Even galaxies themselves are not spread uniformly but appear to be located in filaments. Therefore the Universe can be divided geographically into regions that follow this structure
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1,000,000 LY from the Sun for example: M31, M32, and M33.
1.3.3
17
Sun. Celestial Objects less than 16 LY from the Sun lies within this arm.
(a) (b)
Astrophysical Theory That includes general relativity and Astrophysical Processes It includes baryonic and others
others. physical processes that generally includes mechanics electromagnetism, electromagnetic forces, statistical mechanics, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, relativity, gravity and others.
(d)
(e)Astrophysical
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medium, interplanetary medium, heliosphere sheet, interplanetary medium, Solar wind and others.
current
(g)
includes Stars, active galactic nuclei, and fusion power, magnetohydrodynamic, X-rays, bremmstrahlung, Cosmology, recognized, ambipolar diffusion, Particle Physics and others.
(a)
Galaxy
Formation
and
elliptical galaxies giant galaxies, M31 the Andromeda galaxy and others.
Intra-Galactic
includes Black Hole, Globular Clusters, Satellite Galaxy, and Retrograde Rotation, Halo stars, High Velocity Clouds, Monoceros Ring, accretion disc, Gravitation, Angular momentum, Centripetal force, tidal effects, Viscosity, orbital momentum, Accretion disk, Active galactic nuclei, Protoplanetary discs, Gamma ray bursts and others.
Processes
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(b)
science containing all the physical sciences related directly to the Milky Way Galaxy: Halo stars, Milky Way High Velocity Clouds, Milky Way Monoceros Ring, Milky Way accretion disc, Milky Way Gravitation, Milky Way Angular momentum, Milky Way Centripetal force, Milky Way tidal effects, Milky Way Viscosity, Milky Way orbital momentum, Milky Way event horizon, Milky Way black hole and others.
(a)
containing all of the physical sciences related directly to our local Sun.
Stellar-Processes, General
Stellar dynamics, stars, Stellar Evolution, event horizon, black hole, x-rays, nuclear fusion and others. In astronomy, stellar evolution is the sequence of changes that a star undergoes during its lifetime; the hundreds of thousands, millions or billions of years during which it emits light and heat. Over the course of that time, the star will change radically. Stellar evolution is not studied by observing the life cycle of a single starmost stellar changes occur too slowly to be detected even over many centuries. Instead, astrophysicists come to understand how stars evolve by observing numerous stars, each at a different point in its life cycle, and simulating stellar structure with computer models.
(b)
also known as a stellar nursery. Most of the 'empty' space inside a galaxy actually contains around 0.1 to 1 particle per cm, but
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inside a GMC, the typical density is a few million particles per cm. A GMC contains 100,000 to 10,000,000 times as much mass as our Sun by virtue of its size: 50 to 300 light-years across. Very small protostars never reach temperatures high enough or nuclear fusion of hydrogen to begin; these are brown dwarfs of less than 0.1 solar mass. Brown dwarfs heavier than 13 Jupiter masses (MJ) do fuse deuterium, and some astronomers prefer to call only these objects brown dwarfs, classifying anything larger than a planet but smaller than this a sub-stellar object. Both types, deuterium-burning or not, shine dimly and die away slowly, cooling gradually over hundreds of millions of years. The central temperature in more massive protostars, however, will eventually reach 10 mega Kelvin, at which point hydrogen begins to fuse by way of the proton-proton chain reaction to deuterium and then to helium.
Figure 1.4 Quintuplet Cluster- Very young and near the Galactic Center. The onset of nuclear fusion leads over a relatively short time to a hydrostatic equilibrium in which energy released by the core
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prevents further gravitational collapse. The star thus evolves rapidly to a stable state. New stars come in a variety of sizes and colors. They range in spectral type from hot and blue to cool and red, and in mass from less than 0.5 to more than 20 solar masses. The brightness and color of a star depend on its surface temperature, which in turn depends on its mass. A new star will fall at a specific point on the main sequence of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. Small, cool red dwarfs burn hydrogen slowly and may remain on the main sequence for hundreds of billions of years, while massive hot supergiants will leave the main sequence after just a few million years. A mid-sized star like the Sun will remain on the main sequence for about 10 billion years. The Sun is thought to be in the middle of its lifespan; thus, it is on the main sequence. Once a star expends most of the hydrogen in its core, it moves off the main sequence. It can be seen that on :
a.
b.
d.
e.
f.
Neutron stars
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It is known that in some supernovae, the intense gravity inside the supergiant forces the electrons into the atomic nuclei, where they combine with the protons to form neutrons. The electromagnetic forces keeping separate nuclei apart are gone (proportionally, if nuclei were the size of dust motes, atoms would be as large as football stadiums), and the entire core of the star becomes nothing but a dense ball of contiguous neutrons or a single atomic nucleus.
g.
Figure 1.5 Solar System Planets. The Earth and Planetary science includes the study of the following:
(a)
Planetary
Processes,
(b)
methods, especially by seismic, electromagnetic, and radioactivity methods, therefore Planetary Geophysics is the study
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of the planets by quantitative physical methods, especially by seismic, electromagnetic, and radioactivity methods. It includes the branches of: Seismology (earthquakes and elastic waves), planetary gravity, geodesy, Tectonophysics (geological processes in the planets), Mineral Physics and others. Geophysics can be both a part of physics and a part of Geology.
(d)
science containing all the physical sciences related directly to our Earth. Planetary Science can be broadly divided into several major sciences: Geology, Oceanography and Atmospheres.
(f)
(g)
Geology
Fields
or
related
disciplines Structural
geology, Geomorphology., Economic geology, Mining geology, Geodetics, Geomorphology, Geophysics, Historical geology, Hydrogeology or geohydrology, Mineralogy, Paleoclimatology, Sedimentology, Seismology, Stratigraphy, Structural geology, Volcanology, Hydrology, Geothermometry (heating of the earth, heat flow, volcanology, and hot springs), Hydrology (ground and surface water, sometimes including glaciology).
(h) (i)
Extrasolar Geology is currently a young science because Atmospheres of Solar System Planets refers to the
only recently have extrasolar planets been found. application of meteorological principles to other bodies of the solar system including the application of: Atmospheric electricity and terrestrial magnetism (including ionosphere, Van Allen belts, telluric currents, Radiant energy, etc.), Meteorology and Climatology. Aeronomy the study of the physical structure and chemistry of the atmosphere. Atmosphere of Planets of the Solar System that includes Mars atmosphere, Jupiter atmosphere, atmosphere on Jupiters-Moons,
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atmosphere, atmosphere on Uranus and atmospheres of Extrasolar Planets is currently a young science because only recently have extrasolar planets been found. Astronomers are currently theorizing that the recently discovered extrasolar Jupitersized planets have continuous surface winds of many thousands of miles per hour caused by their highly elliptical orbit which brings them close to their parent star.
Figure 1.6 Planets around other stars Over the last few years, intensified research and improved observational techniques have led to the discovery of stars which are orbited by companions of very low mass. The data so far available indicate that at least the majority of these have masses comparable to that of Jupiter, the largest planet in our own solar system. Efforts to discover more planetary companions to other stars in the Milky Way galaxy are being vigorously pursued and will no doubt feature prominently in astronomical research over the next several decades. The International Astronomical union (IAU) provides a forum for international discussion and coordination of research in this exciting new branch of astronomy. In order to facilitate international research in the field, and as part of these discussions, the IAU is also developing a system for clear and unambiguous scientific designation of these bodies at all stages
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during their study, from tentative identification to fully-characterized objects. Such a system must take into account that discoveries are often tentative, later to be confirmed or rejected, possibly by several different methods, and that several planets belonging to the same star may eventually be discovered, again possibly by different means. Thus, considerable care and experience are required in its design. In response to frequent questions about plans to assign actual names to extra-solar planets, the IAU sees no need and has no plan to assign names to these objects at the present stage of our knowledge. Indeed, if planets are found to occur very frequently in the Universe, a system of individual names for planets might well rapidly be found equally impracticable as it is for stars, as planet discoveries progress.
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Figure 1.7 Silicon Based Life-A picture of silent, the silicon-based analogue of methane.
(a) (b)
Habitable Zone Astrobiology is discussed in Galactic Astrobiochemistry Exogenesis most scientists hold that if
Habitable Zone and Solar System Habitable Zone. extraterrestrial life exists, its evolution would have occurred independently in different places in the universe. An alternative hypothesis, held by a minority, is panspermia, which suggests that life in the universe could have stemmed from a smaller number of points of origin, and then spread across the universe, from habitable planet to habitable planet. These two hypotheses are not mutually exclusive. Alternative biochemistry includes Alternative Carbon Biochemistry where water is not the Solvent of Carbon Chains: Life forms based in ammonia rather than water are also considered, though this solution appears less optimal than water Also included is Alternative Non-Carbon Biochemistry- noncarbon based chemistry Silicon is usually considered the most likely alternative to carbon, though this remains improbable. Silicon life forms are proposed to have a crystalline morphology, and are theorized to be able to exist in high temperatures, such as planets closer to the sun.
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Habitability Extrasolar planets Astronomers also search for extrasolar planets that would be conducive to life, especially those like OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb which have been found to have Earth-like qualities.
(d)
includes Extremophiles, Theoretical Astrobotany, Life On Jupiter, Life on Mars scientific theory, Independently in 1996 structures resembling bacteria were reportedly discovered in a meteorite, ALH84001, thought to be formed of rock ejected from Mars. This report is also controversial and scientific debate continues. Other S-Planets OriginsSpeculations and Scientific Theory Panspermia. Extraterrestrial life along with the biochemical basis of extraterrestrial life, there remains a broader consideration of evolution and morphology.
(f)
Humanoids- On- Other- Planets Technical Civilizations includes Humanoids On Other Planets,
Technical - Civilizations, Speculation and theory. Most scientists hold that if extraterrestrial life exists, its evolution would have occurred independently in different places in the universe. An alternative hypothesis, held by a minority, is panspermia, which suggests that life in the universe could have stemmed from a smaller number of points of origin, and then spread across the universe, from habitable planet to habitable planet.
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unmanned. All man-made satellites are a form of unmanned or manned space stations
(a)
the sciences of Spacecraft Propulsion, Rocket launch technology, Rocket, Astrodynamics, Unmanned space missions, and others.
Unmanned
Space
travel includes
(b)
Microgravity environment, Space transport, manned space missions, interplanetary travel, Interstellar travel and Generation ship.
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Space colonization is a colossal science that includes all of the scientific disciplines needed to be able to build colonies on non-Earth planets and planetoids.
(a) (b)
Space Colonization Justification includes the sciences Space Colony Research And Development Man can
of Space and survival. practice living on other worlds by building permanently inhabitable cities in extremely hostile environments of the Earth: The poles and the deserts. Currently manned Earth hostile-environment stations include Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Devon Island, Mars Arctic Research Station, Mars Desert Research Station, climate, underwater structures for planets with oceans or very heavy atmospheres and others.
(d)
includes Space habitat, Human adaptation to space, Manmade closed ecological system, planetary habitability, domed city, Ocean colonization, Underground city and other sub-sciences.
Space
Colonization
Habitat science
Colonization
Space
Colonization
Space Station.
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(i)
Space Colonization Transportation includes lunar rover. Space Colonization Materials includes Recycling. Space Colonization Energy includes Renewable energy.
Space Manufacturing.
(m) Space Colonization General Manufacturing includes (n) Space Colonization Economics: includes Space Frontier
Foundation, Private space flight and space tourism, solar power satellites, Asteroid mining, space manufacturing,
(o)
Space
Colonization
agencies, Space advocacy, Colonize the Cosmos, Artemis Project, National Space Society, Planetary Society, robotic exploration, search for extraterrestrial life.
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Figure 1.9 Space Lasers. Space Defense is the science of defending the Earth from natural or unnatural threats from Space. Natural threats include Near Earth Asteroids and similar. Other issues are discussed in Missile Defense Command, United States Army Space and Missile Defense Command, Department of Defense Manned Space Flight Support Office, European Aeronautic Defense & Space and Joint Defense Space Research Facility.
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agriculture, power and telecommunications networks, disaster warnings and emergency response. (c) Communication satellites have the potential of bridging the knowledge gap between rich and poor countries by leapfrogging certain stages of developments, by improving education, health services and promoting favorable conditions for environmental protection. (d) Natural resource assessment can be done by using GIS layers. (e) Space technology has improved vastly the Broadcasting, teleeducation, tele-medicine services.
Summery
Space is the boundless, three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction. Space is one of the few fundamental quantities in physics In the last 60 years, space probes and space observatories have played central role in the progress of human exploration and development in understanding of space. The thrust in modern space science really began in 1946 and the 1970 were the golden age of space science. The space science is an all-encompassing term that describes all the various science fields that are concerned with the study of the Universe. Astronomical methods are the equipment and techniques used to collect data about the objects in Space. The Physics of the Universe can be divided into several broad categories. There are eight overall categories in space science that can generally be described on their own; Astrophysics, Galactic Science, Stellar Science, non-Earth Planetary Science, Biology of Other Planets, Astronautics/Space Travel, Space Colonization and Space Defense. Space technology can be used Broadcasting, tele-education, tele-medicine services, and disaster management etc.
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Exercises
Fill in the blanks 1. ______ cannot be defined via other quantities because nothing more fundamental is known at the present. 2. The 1970 were the _______________ of space science.
3. The space science is a ______________ term that describes
all the various ___________ fields that are concerned with the study of the Universe.
4. There are _________ overall categories in space science that
is Galileo's second astronomical method was to describe what he saw in the telescope. around _______ to ______particle per cm.
the ____________disciplines needed to be able to build colonies on non-Earth planets and planetoids.
9. Space Defense is the science of defending the Earth from
Q1. What do you understand by space science? Ans. Today the space science is an all-encompassing term that describes all the various science fields that are concerned with the study of the Universe, generally also meaning "excluding the Earth" and "outside of the Earth's atmosphere". Q2. How exploration and development in our understanding of space augmented? Ans. In the last 60 years, space probes and space observatories have played central role in the progress of human exploration and development in understanding of space which is augmented by manned spacecrafts and space stations acting as the carriers of space equipments. Q3. What was the golden period of space science? Ans. The 1970 were the golden age of space science. In 1976 two Viking spacecrafts landed on the surface of the Mars and in 1977 two Voyager spacecrafts began their journey to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune and beyond heliosphere. Q4. What are the major subfields within astronomy? Ans. The major sub-fields within astronomy, such as astrophysics, have grown so large that they are now considered separate fields on their own. There are eight overall categories that can generally be described on their own; Astrophysics, Galactic Science, Stellar Science, non-Earth Planetary Science, Biology of Other Planets, Astronautics/Space Travel, Space Colonization and Space Defense. Q5. What was Galileos first method of astronomy? Ans. Galileo's first astronomical method was to find and buy the best telescope of the time and then points that telescope to the heavens. Q6. What is the role of Milky Way in its Local Group? Ans. In the Local Group our Milky Way Galaxy plays a large gravitational part because our galaxy is the second largest galaxy in our Local Group, second only to the Andromeda Galaxy. Q7. What is stellar evolution?
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Ans. It is the sequence of changes that a star undergoes during its lifetime. Q8. What are brown dwarfs? Ans. A very small protostars where temperatures never reach high enough or nuclear fusion of hydrogen cannot begin is brown dwarfs of less than 0.1 solar mass. In brown dwarfs heavier than 13 Jupiter masses (MJ) there is a fusion to deuterium, and some astronomers prefer to call only these objects brown dwarfs, thus, classifying anything larger than a planet but smaller than this a sub-stellar object as brown dwarfs. Q9. What is main sequence star? Ans. It is the sequence of changes that a star undergoes during its lifetime. Q10. What is stellar evolution? Ans. It is the sequence of changes that a star undergoes during its lifetime. Q11. What is the main factor to ignite helium burning in a star? Ans. Temperature is the main factor to ignite helium burning in a star. Study Questions Q1. Define Space? Write a note on its development? Q2. Discuss Astronomical Methods? Q3. What do you understand with cartography of space bodies? Q4. Discuss the various processes of stellar science? Q5. What is the importance of Exobiology? Q6. Describe Space colonization? Q7. What you understand with Geodesy of the Solar System? Q8. What is the importance of space travel? Q9. Give some of the applications of space science? Q10. How Space travel is important in the exploration of the space?
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Solar System
Unit II
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Chapter 2
Nicolaus Copernicus (1 9 February 1473 24 May 1543) was a renaissance astronomer and the first to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology, which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe.
Solar System
In ancient times the earth was considered to be the central and dominant in the universe, while the sun, moon and planets were considered to be luminous orbs that moved about on the celestial sphere through the zodiac. However, our solar system is indeed dominated by one body the sun, not the earth. The sun though very important to us is an ordinary star. Only careful scrutiny at a close range would reveal the tiny planets to an imaginary interstellar visitor. First the Jupiter, the largest, would be seen; then Venus and Saturn; and perhaps only with the greatest difficulty, the earth and other planets. Almost 99.99 percent of the matter in the system is the sun itself; the planets comprise most of what is left- the earth scarcely counts among them. The countless millions of other objects in the solar system, mostly unknown to ancients would probably remain unnoticed by a casual traveler passing through solar neighborhood. For many thousands of years, humanity, with a few notable exceptions, did not recognize the existence of the Solar System.
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They believed the Earth to be stationary at the centre of the universe and categorically different from the divine or ethereal objects that moved through the sky. Although the Indian mathematician-astronomer Aryabhata and the Greek philosopher Aristarchus of Samos had speculated on a heliocentric reordering of the cosmos, while Nicolaus Copernicus was the first to develop a mathematically predictive heliocentric system. His 17th-century successors, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton, developed an understanding of physics which led to the gradual acceptance of the idea that the Earth moves around the Sun and that the planets are governed by the same physical laws that governed the Earth. In more recent times, improvements in the telescope and the use of unmanned spacecraft have enabled the investigation of geological phenomena such as mountains and craters, and seasonal meteorological phenomena such as clouds, dust storms and ice caps on the other planets.
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and Eris, are recognized to be large enough to have been rounded by their own gravity, and are thus termed dwarf planets. In addition to thousands of small bodies in those two regions, various other small body populations, such as comets, centaurs and interplanetary dust, freely travel between regions. The solar wind, a flow of plasma from the Sun, creates a bubble in the interstellar medium known as the heliosphere, which extends out to the edge of the scattered disc. The hypothetical Oort cloud, which acts as the source for long-period comets, may also exist at a distance roughly a thousand times further than the heliosphere. Six of the planets and three of the dwarf planets are orbited by natural satellites, usually termed "moons" after Earth's Moon. Each of the outer planets is encircled by planetary rings of dust and other particles. The relative prominence of various kinds of members of solar system is indicated in Table 2.1 which lists the approximate distribution of mass among the bodies of solar system. The last four entries in the table are order of magnitude guesses only. Object Sun Planets Comets Satellites Minor Planets Meteoroids Interplanetary medium Percentage of Mass 99.85 0.135 0.01 (?) 0.00005 0.0000002 (?) 0.0000001(?) 0.0000001
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the sun to be same. Thus we can say our solar system was formed slightly less than 5000 million years ago. Further the organization of planets in the solar system is quite orderly. They all lie nearly in same plane with orbits nearly circular in shape and are regularly spaced. All the planets revolve in the same direction from west to east (same as the direction of rotation of the sun). Most of the planets and most of the satellites of the planets rotate from west to east as well. These facts alone rule out once popular catastrophic theory of origin of solar system. According to this theory, a passing star pulled out the matter from the sun that later condensed into planets. Any matter so extracted even if it were not lost to solar system, could hardly have formed into planets with regularly spaced near circular orbits, and hot gases would have been dispersed, not formed into planets. Moreover, such close encounters of passing stars are exceedingly rare. Today it is generally accepted that the sun and planets formed together from the same original tenuous cloud of interstellar gas and dust called solar nebula. The idea appears to have been first suggested by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, in mid 18th Century, and was developed into the specific model by French astronomer Marquis Pierre Simon de Laplace near the end of same century. This Kant- Laplace idea is known as nebular hypothesis. This Kant Laplace model cannot be correct in detail, but the modern versions are consistent with well known laws of mechanics. There is broad general agreement on the broad outline of the formation of the solar system; however its details are uncertain and are still rather speculative- not because of the subject is particularly mysterious but because we simply do not yet have enough information to choose among the models. In the nebula model it is assumed that about 5000 million years ago the solar system condensed from a tenuous cloud of gas and dust formed the solar nebula having the diameter thousands of times that of orbit of most distant present planet- perhaps as much as a light year or so It would have to have had some original net rotation probably due to differential rotation of the Galaxy itself. The rotation of the original cloud has been exceedingly slightmerely a slight net unbalance of the many random motions of the gases within it. It is seen that some stars eject matter into space. Thus the interstellar medium from which our solar system is
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condensed was not simply the left over matter that did not condensed into star when the Galaxy was formed, but also it contains a good deal of matter that was formerly part of another star. Most stars derive their energy by thermonuclear conversion of light atoms into heavier ones, thereby slowly changing their chemical composition. The solar nebula therefore, contained many atoms that have been built up by nuclear reactions of another stars. It may be noted that our own bodies are made up of atoms, many or most of which are formed in earlier stars. The solar nebula so formed perhaps represented a fluctuation of density, so that it was very slightly denser than the gas in the interstellar medium surrounding it. Thus it must have been gravitationally unstable so that its gravitation was enough to pull its parts together, that is, the random motion of its gaseous parts and dust particles were great enough for them to escape each other dispersing the cloud, so it began to contract under its own gravity. As it contracted, it has to conserve the angular momentum which force it to rotate faster and faster as it draw itself together .After some time the rotation began to produce orderly structures. Eventually, the matter in the outer equatorial region of the rotating cloud, moving ever faster as it contracted, had a high enough speed to stay in a circular orbit about the center of mass of cloud. The material in that part of nebula could not come any closer to the center. To do so it would have to speed up still more (to conserve angular momentum); an increase in speed, however would force it to move out away from the center into larger orbit, and there was no energy available to move it out against the pull of gravity. Thus the material in the equatorial region was simply left behind in roughly circular orbit as the rest of the cloud continued to fall inward. As the time went on more and more material was left behind the shrinking cloud, moving in a circular orbits and forming a disk of materials. The matter in the disk could no longer contract towards its center, although matter on either sides of the disk could fall towards it (falling towards disk in the direction parallel to the axis of rotation).In this way rotating solar nebula flattened itself into disk.
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The in falling atoms picked up speed as they fall, and when the gas density become high enough for them to collide with each other, the kinetic energy was distributed among atoms becoming heat. Most of this heat was radiated away from the disk, but in central condensation- to become the sun-the density grow until gases of the gases of the protosun become opaque. The opacity trapped the heat inside and the pressure produced by heat slowed down the contraction. The shrinking nebula had become a great globe of hot gases that could contract only very gradually, as it was able to slowly radiate away the heat trapped in the interior .Thus a star (the sun) was born at the center, containing perhaps half or more of the material of the original cloud. The rest of the nebula was in the form of a relatively cold rotating disk, from which the planets and their satellites ware formed. In the inner part of solar nebula the high luminosity of young sun would have evaporated the gases that were composed of volatile substances. Thus Particles of water ice and frozen carbon di oxide could exist only far away out in the disk. Rocks and the metallic grains, on the other hand, could survive throughout the disk. In all parts of that rotating disk, though, the orbiting particles were constantly colliding and often sticking together, and many grow by accretion. A few began to get big enough to gravitationally affect those which come near. Sometimes the smaller particles would pass close enough to the bigger one to bump into them and stick. But if they do not pass close enough to hit; they could be gravitationally deflected to the another part of the disk, or even out of solar system altogether In this way, a few large chunks gradually won out over their neighbors, either capturing them or getting rid of them thereby sweeping out ring shaped swaths in the solar nebula all centered on the sun. They become planets. In the final stage of this accretion the young planets swept up the last of the solid chunks remaining on the disk. There must have been many craters producing explosions as these chunks smashed home on the planets without dense atmospheres. We can still observe the heavy catering produced in this period.
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The planets in the inner part of the solar system Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars build up of rocky and metallic particles. They have lot in common and are called the terrestrial (earth like) planets. They could attract and hold on to none of the gases in the solar nebula. Their present atmospheres have out gassed from rocks beneath their surfaces; Mercury however, is too small to retain even this kind of atmosphere. Far out in the nebula, on the other hand, it was cool enough for grains to exist; along with rocky and metallic ones. The planets that accreted out there Jupiter, Saturn Uranus and Neptune formed out of lots of ices as well as rocks and metals. They have lot in common, and are called Jovian (Jupiter like) planets. Jupiter and Saturn were large enough to even attract and hold a large amount of gases in the solar nebula. Jupiter in particular, has the present composition almost like that of the sun; it is mostly the hydrogen and helium. The favored theory of the origin of moon is that it and the earth formed together, the moon accreting from the material in the orbit about the primordial earth. Some, theorists, however, argue that the moon and earth could have formed independently in different parts of the solar nebula but at the same distance from the sun. In this case earth and moon would have to have been trapped in each others mutual gravitational field at later time. Most of the other planets have satellites, and many of them are believed to have formed by accretion from the material in the orbit about their parent planets. Some satellites however, such as the outer ones of Jupiter, have eccentric orbits and even revolve from east to west (opposite to the revolution of the planet and most of the satellites) these were probably captured after their formation. The Asteroids may simply be the objects that never accreted to single large planets, perhaps because there were too little mass in that part of solar system to begin with or perhaps due to the tidal influence of Jupiter. They may however, be still fragmenting by collisions and have started from a much smaller original number of bodies. Planets and minor members of the solar system
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contribute only minutely to its total mass. The original mass of the disk must have been much greater, for it is doubtful if practically all of the solar nebula could be condensed into the sun itself. We know when a star first began to shine it is temporarily much more luminous than when it is fully developed. In that period of the Suns existence a large flux of energy from it both in form of photons and corpuscular radiation (atomic nuclei and electrons) may have interacted with uncondensed gases and tiny unaccerted particles and blown them from solar system. Such an early solar winds of corpuscular radiation could also have carried away most of the suns angular momentum comprises only about 2 percent of that of solar system, despite the fact that the sun has more than 99.8 percent of the systems present mass. The study of stars has indicated that all stars are not formed in the manner the sun was formed. Often, the original protostar fissions into two condensations to become a double star, and the original angular momentum are conserved in the orbital motions of two stars rather than in one star with the system of planets. Other times the cloud breaks up into cluster of stars. We dont know how often planetary systems are formed. At most its only half the times, because about half the stars around us are member of binary star systems. Some recent studies have indicated that the formation of planetary systems might be relatively rare.
Figure 2.1 Schematic representation of the formation of the solar system(1) the solar nebula condensed from the interstellar medium and contracts (2) as the
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nebula shrinks its rotation causes it to flatten, until (3) the nebula is a disk of matter with the concentration near the center, which (4) becomes the primordial sun. Meanwhile, solid particles condense to the inner solar nebula. These (5) accrete to form the terrestrial planets. The pressure of radiation and wind of corpuscular radiation from the primordial sun blow the solar system clean of most of the matter in the disk that did not form into the planets. The figures are not to the same scale, the original nebula has to contract greatly before its rotation produces appreciable flattening.
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Figure 2.2 The orbits of the bodies in the Solar System to scale (clockwise from top left) Kepler's laws of planetary motion describe the orbits of objects about the Sun. According to Kepler's laws, each object travels along an ellipse with the Sun at one focus. Objects closer to the Sun (with smaller semi-major axes) have shorter years. On an elliptical orbit, a body's distance from the Sun varies over the course of its year. A body's closest approach to the Sun is called its perihelion, while its most distant point from the Sun is called its aphelion. Each body moves fastest at its perihelion and slowest at its aphelion. The orbits of the planets are nearly circular, but many comets, asteroids and Kuiper belt objects follow highly elliptical orbits. Most of the planets in the Solar System possess secondary systems of their own. Many are in turn orbited by planetary objects called natural satellites, or moons, some of which are larger than the planet Mercury. Most of the largest natural satellites are in synchronous rotation, with one face permanently turned toward their parent. The four largest planets, the gas giants, also possess planetary rings, thin bands of tiny particles that orbit them in unison.
2.4 Terminology
Informally, the Solar System is sometimes divided into separate regions. The inner Solar System includes the four terrestrial planets and the main asteroid belt. The outer Solar System is beyond the
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asteroids, including the four gas giant planets. Since the discovery of the Kuiper belt, the outermost parts of the Solar System are considered a distinct region consisting of the objects beyond Neptune. Dynamically and physically, objects orbiting the Sun are officially classed into three categories: planets, dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies. A planet is any body in orbit around the Sun that has enough mass to form itself into a spherical shape and has cleared its immediate neighborhood of all smaller objects. By this definition, the Solar System has eight known planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Pluto does not fit this definition, as it has not cleared its orbit of surrounding Kuiper belt objects. A dwarf planet is a celestial body orbiting the Sun that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity but which has not cleared its neighboring region of planetesimals and is not a satellite. By this definition, the Solar System has five known dwarf planets: Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris. Other objects may be classified in the future as dwarf planets, such as Sedna, Orcus, and Quaoar. Dwarf planets that orbit in the trans-Neptunian region are called "plutoids". The remainder of the objects in orbit around the Sun is small Solar System bodies.
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Figure 2.3 Planets and dwarf planets of the Solar System. Sizes are to scale, but relative distances from the Sun are not. Planetary scientists use the terms gas, ice, and rock to describe the various classes of substances found throughout the Solar System. Rock is used to describe compounds with high condensation temperatures or melting points that remained solid under almost all conditions in the protoplanetary nebula. Rocky substances typically include silicates and metals such as iron and nickel. They are prevalent in the inner Solar System, forming most of the terrestrial planets and asteroids. Gases are materials with extremely low melting points and high vapor pressure such as molecular hydrogen, helium, and neon, which were always in the gaseous phase in the nebula. They dominate the middle region of the Solar System, comprising most of Jupiter and Saturn. Ices, like water, methane, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide, have melting points up to a few hundred Kelvin, while their phase depends on the ambient pressure and temperature. They can be found as ices, liquids, or gases in various places in the Solar System, while in the nebula they were either in the solid or gaseous phase. Icy substances comprise the majority of the satellites of the giant planets, as well as most of Uranus and Neptune (the so-called "ice giants") and the numerous small objects that lie beyond Neptune's orbit. Together, gases and ices are referred to as volatiles.
enhanced. The expansion speed is very low in the inner corona but increases rapidly with height. At the critical radius the thermal energy and the expansion kinetic energy become comparable; at this point the velocity is close to the velocity of sound in the plasma and the critical point is sometimes refer to as sonic point. At large distances the expansion velocity increases still further and solar wind becomes supersonic. The magnetic field is now carried along with the expanding plasma resulting in interplanetary magnetic fields. At about 20 R (radius of the sun) from the sun, the coronal expansion becomes very nearly radial but the rotation of the solar winds the interplanetary magnetic field lines into Archimedes spirals on the cones described by rotating radius vector Figure 2.4. In early work on solar wind theory, incorrect assumptions about the electric field produced by the coronal plasma called RannekockRossel and electric field derived under the assumption of static equilibrium led to evaporative models of the coronal expansion predicting much lower (subsonic) velocities that is solar breeze rather than solar winds. In situ measurements by space crafts have confirmed the basic velocity of the solar wind as measured near the earth are give in Table 2.2 The observations indicate the essentially continuous presence of magnetic field fluctuations in the solar wind plasma that seems to be predominantly Alfvn waves being convected outward from the sun. In addition to being convected the waves move s outward from the sun with respect to plasma. Because of overall propagation it is presumed that the waves are originated near the sun-at least inside the critical radius. It has been suggested that photospheric supergranulation is the source of these waves. Solar wind magnetic field lines are convected away from the sun by expanding solar wind. This interplanetary magnetic field is originated and ordered on large scale Observations made near the equatorial plane of the sun suggest that the magnetic field is originated into a few (typically four) sectors or regions where the magnetic field is predominantly directed either away from the sun or towards the sun along the basic Archimedes spiral induced by solar rotation as shown in Figure 2.4.
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Property Medium 8 -2 -2 Flux (10 ions cm s ) 1.0 -1 Velocity (km s ) 200 -3 Density (ions cm ) .4 Electron Temperature 5 (1000 K) Proton Temperature 3 (1000 K) Magnetic Field 0.2 -5 Strength (10 = G) Alfvn speed (km s) 30 Helium abundance 0.0 (fraction per number) Table 2.2 Properties of Solar Winds
Figure 2.4 Schematic diagram of the wrapped current sheet in the inner solar system (inside 6 AU). This current sheet divides the interplanetary magnetic field in the heliosphere into two regions with oppositely directed field lines. In one region the field polarity
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is towards the sun, in the other region it is away from the sun. The situation is shown for a four-sector structure. Formed by Archimedes spiral formed by solar rotation Full and dashed lines indicate the current sheet lying above and below the equatorial plane, respectively. The extend in latitude of the current sheet was assumed to be 15. The sun at the centre is not shown to scale. The solar wind extend into the regions around the sun approximately called the heliosphere and is expected to terminate at heliopause are at a distance R at which the pressure of the wind balance the pressure of interstellar space This interstellar pressure is due to a combination of contribution from galactic magnetic fields and, cosmic rays and interstellar gas. The value of R is not known but R 50 to 100 AU is often quoted.
hydrogen is converted into helium two positrons are created in the nuclear reactions, and these annihilate with two free electrons, adding to the energy produced. Thus with the mass lost by 0.02862U is 0.71 percent of the mass of the initial hydrogen. If 1 g of hydrogen turns into helium, 0.0071 g of material is converted into energy. The velocity of light is 3 x 10 10 cm/s so the energy released is M = m.c2 = 0.0071 x (3x1010)2 = 6.4 x1018 ergs
This = 6 x1018 ergs is enough energy to raise the 5-m telescope150 Km above the ground. To produce the suns luminosity of 4 x 1033 ergs/s, some 600 million tons of hydrogen must be converted into helium per second with the simultaneous conversion of 4 million tons of matter into energy. As large as these numbers are the nuclear energy in the sun is still enormous. Suppose the half of the suns mass of 2x1033g is hydrogen that can be ultimately converted into helium, then the total store of nuclear energy in the sun would be 6 x 1052 ergs. Even at the suns current rate of expenditure the sun could survive more than 1010 years. As a main sequence star the main source of energy of the sun is thermonuclear conversion of four protons to one helium atom with the release of the binding energy of 26.73 MeV. At the temperature less than 2.3 x 107K most of the energy is provided by proton proton (PP) chain a series of reaction that yields 26.20 MeV in gamma rays and 0.53 MeV in neutrinos.
He (4He, ) 7Be
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Then either
(pep reaction)
Or
This reaction produces neutrinos which should be detectable on the earth. At temperature above 1.7 x 107 K a very different reaction catalyzed by carbon, nitrogen and oxygen (hence CNO cycle) takes over. This is very sensitive to temperature (rate proportional to T17) whereas the p-p chain is only weakly dependent (rate proportional to T4). In solar model the CNO energy production is strongly concentrated at the core but even there it provides only 6% of the total energy production rate in the standard model. A lower core temperature, that would be consistent with the observed neutrino flux, would produce even less energy by the CNO cycle.
Summery
Nicolaus Copernicus was the first to develop a mathematically predictive heliocentric system. The Solar System consists of the Sun and those celestial objects bound to it by gravity. Solar System was formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago.
The four smaller inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, also called the terrestrial planets they are primarily composed of rock and metal. The four outer planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, also called the gas giants, are composed largely of hydrogen and helium and are far more massive than the terrestrials.
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Five individual objects, Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake and Eris, are recognized to be large enough to have been rounded by their own gravity, and are termed dwarf planets. Dwarf planets that orbit in the trans-Neptunian region are also called "plutoids".
The solar wind is actually an extension of the solar corona (outer atmosphere of the sun) in the form of more or less continuous outflow of ions and electrons. It was suggested about 1928 that the energy source in the stars might be fusion of light elements into heavier elements.
Exercises
Fill in the blanks Nicolaus Copernicus was the first to develop a mathematically predictive ________________. Solar System was formed approximately ___________ billion years ago. Asteroid belt lie between___________ and __________. The _________ of Planets and _______ of dwarf planets are orbited by their moons. The sun comprises approximately ___________ percent of the mass of the solar system.
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The most popular theory of the formation of the solar system is ____________. The star derives their energy by ______________ conversion. Asteroids never accreted to large planets due to their very low__________. Most of the large objects in orbit round the sun lie near the orbit of the earth called ___________ The solar winds can be detected as far as ______AU.
Short questions with answer Q1. What is a solar system? When it is thought to be created? Ans. The Solar System consists of the Sun and those celestial objects bound to it by gravity, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. Q2. What are the regions of solar system? Ans. The Solar System is also home to two regions populated by smaller objects. The asteroid belt, which lies between Mars and Jupiter, is similar to the terrestrial planets as it is composed mainly of rock and metal. Beyond Neptune's orbit lie transNeptunian objects composed mostly of ices such as water, ammonia and methane. Within these regions, five individual objects, Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake and Eris, are recognized to be large enough to have been rounded by their own gravity, and are thus termed dwarf planets. Q3. Name the planets of solar system?
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Ans. There are four smaller inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, also called the terrestrial planets they are primarily composed of rock and metal. The four outer planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, also called the gas giants, are composed largely of hydrogen and helium and are far more massive than the terrestrials. Recently, five individual objects, Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake and Eris, are recognized to be large enough to have been rounded by their own gravity, and are thus termed dwarf planets. Q4. Do all planets and dwarf planets have natural satellites? Ans. Six of the planets and three of the dwarf planets are orbited by natural satellites, usually termed "moons" after Earth's Moon. Each of the outer planets is encircled by planetary rings of dust and other particles. Q5. What is the catastrophic theory of the origin of solar system? Ans. The Catastrophic theory of origin of solar system suggest that a passing star pulled out the matter from the sun that later condensed into planets. Q6 What is the nebular theory of the origin of solar system? When did it first appear?
Ans. It is generally accepted that the sun and planets formed together from the same original tenuous cloud of interstellar gas and dust called solar nebula. The idea appears to have been first suggested by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, in mid 18th Century, and was developed into the specific model by French astronomer Marquis Pierre Simon de Laplace near the end of same century. This Kant- Laplace idea is known as nebular hypothesis. This Kant Laplace model cannot be correct in detail, but the modern versions are consistent with well known laws of mechanics. Q7. How often stars like the sun is formed? Ans. The study of stars has indicated that all stars are not formed in the manner the sun was formed. Often, the original protostar fissions into two condensations to become a double star, and
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the original angular momentum are conserved in the orbital motions of two stars rather than in one star with the system of planets. Other times the cloud breaks up into cluster of stars. Q8. How often planetary systems like that of sun is formed? Ans. We dont know how often planetary systems are formed. At most its only half the times, because about half the stars around us are member of binary star systems. Some recent studies have indicated that the formation of planetary systems might be relatively rare. Q9. What is the heliosphere? Ans. We dont know how often planetary systems are formed. At most its only half the times, because about half the stars around us are member of binary star systems. Some recent studies have indicated that the formation of planetary systems might be relatively rare. Q10. What amount of hydrogen must be converted into helium for the sun to sustain its present luminosity? Ans. To produce the suns luminosity of 4 x 1033 ergs/s, some 600 million tons of hydrogen must be converted into helium per second with the simultaneous conversion of 4 million tons of matter into energy. Study Questions Q1. Give brief idea about the members of solar system. Q2. How solar system is thought to be originated? What are the two important theories of its origin? Q3. On what grounds the catastrophic theory of the origin of solar system is discarded? Q4. Explain the nebular theory of the origin of solar system. Q5. How do the planets formed? Q6. What is the theory of the formation of moons? Q7. Discuss the structure of solar system. Q8. What are solar winds? Q9. What is the major source of energy of the sun? Q10. Why do we not expect the nuclear fusion on the surface layer of the star?
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Chapter 3
Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, OM, FRS (28 December 1882 22 November 1944) was a British astrophysicist of the early 20th century. The Eddington limit, the natural limit to the luminosity of stars, or the radiation generated by accretion onto a compact object, is named in his honour
Figure 3.1 A transit of Venus, showing the size of the Sun in comparison to the planet
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The Sun is a population I star; it was born in the later stages of the universe's evolution, and thus contains more elements heavier than hydrogen and helium ("metals" in astronomical parlance) than older population II stars. Elements heavier than hydrogen and helium were formed in the cores of ancient and exploding stars, so the first generation of stars had to die before the universe could be enriched with these atoms. The oldest stars contain few metals, while stars born later have more. This high metallicity is thought to have been crucial to the Sun's developing a planetary system, because planets are formed from accretion of "metals". These metals are heated to the gaseous state. The tremendous pressure is produced by the great weight of the suns layers. The high temperature of its interior and consequent thermonuclear reactions keeps the entire sun gaseous. There is no distinct surface we observe optically only the level in the sun at which the gases become opaque and prevent us from seeing deep into its interior. The temperature of that region is about 6000 K. Relatively, sparse outer gases extends for millions of kilometers into space in all directions. The visible part of the sun is 1,390.000 Km across. This is 109 times the diameter of the earth. Its volume is 1 million times that of the earth. Its mass is 2 x 1033 g exceeds that of the earth by 333,000 times. The suns energy output is 5 x 1023 hp that provides all the light and heat for rest of the solar system. Some solar data obtained by various techniques are described in Table 3.1
Datum How Found Value
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Mean distance
1 AU 149,597892 km
Maximum distance from earth Minimum distance from earth Mass Acceleration of earth
Mass/volume GM/R2
Measured by instruments such as bolometer 1.368 x 106 ergs/s/cm2 3.8 x 1033 ergs/s
Luminosity
brightest near the sun and can be seen in the west within a few hours after the sunset or in the east within few hours before the sunrise. Sometimes, it can be seen as the complete band confined to ecliptic or zodiac, it is called as Zodiacal light. Spectrographic analysis of the zodiacal light seems to be sunlight, presumably reflected from microscopic solid particles. The stream of particles spreads outwards at roughly 1.5 million kilometers per hour, creating a tenuous atmosphere (the heliosphere) that permeates the Solar System out to at least 100 AU (see heliopause). Apart from interplanetary dust it is thought that planetary atmosphere do not end abruptly but thins out gradually into interplanetary gas. The evidence to this effect is provided by space probes which reveal that interplanetary gas consists of ions and electrons ejected into space from the sun as solar wind. Geomagnetic storms on the Sun's surface, such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections, disturb the heliosphere, creating space weather. The largest structure within the heliosphere is the heliospheric current sheet, a spiral form created by the actions of the Sun's rotating magnetic field on the interplanetary medium. Thus we can say that interplanetary space contains minute widely spread particles and very sparse gas. In the neighborhood of earth there are only a few ions per cubic centimeter. This is a far better vacuum than can be produced in any terrestrial laboratory. Earth's magnetic field stops its atmosphere from being stripped away by the solar wind. Venus and Mars do not have magnetic fields, and as a result, the solar wind causes their atmospheres to gradually bleed away into space. Coronal mass ejections and similar events blow magnetic field and huge quantities of material from the surface of the Sun. The interaction of this magnetic field and material with Earth's magnetic field funnels charged particles into the Earth's upper atmosphere, where its interactions create aurorae seen near the magnetic poles. Cosmic rays originate outside the Solar System. The heliosphere partially shields the Solar System, and planetary magnetic fields (for those planets that have them) also provide some protection. The density of cosmic rays in the interstellar medium and the strength of
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the Sun's magnetic field change on very long timescales, so the level of cosmic radiation in the Solar System varies, though by how much is unknown. The interplanetary medium is home to at least two disc-like regions of cosmic dust. The first, the zodiacal dust cloud, lies in the inner Solar System and causes zodiacal light. It was likely formed by collisions within the asteroid belt brought on by interactions with the planets. The second extends from about 10 AU to about 40 AU, and was probably created by similar collisions within the Kuiper belt.
Planets
Most of the material of the solar system that is not a part of the sun itself is concentrated in the planets. In contrast to the sun the planets are small, relatively cool and solid or liquid. They are not self illuminating at visible wavelengths and shines with the reflected light of the sun As far as the nomenclature of the planets are concerned Two planets near the sun than the earth (mercury and Venus) are called inferior planets., while the ones with the orbit outside the earths are called superior planets. Four innermost planets Mercury through Mars are called inner planets. Jupiter, Saturn Neptune, Uranus are called outer planets. Finally, the four largest planets Jupiter, Saturn Neptune, Uranus are called jovian planets after Jupiter or occasionally major planets and other planets the terrestrial planets. The masses of the planets in terms of earths mass varies in the range from 0.055 (Mercury) to 318 (Jupiter). The mass of the Jupiter is greater than that of all other planets combined together. In diameter the planets range from 4878 Km (Mercury) to 143,000 Km (Jupiter). Most but not all the planets are surrounded by the gaseous atmospheres. All but two of the planets have natural satellites. Jupiter and Saturn leads with at least 64 known moons each with new ones keep turning up in our exploration to those worlds with interplanetary probes. All the planets revolve about the sun in same direction from west to east. Their mean distance from the sun ranges from 0.39 AU (58 million kilometer) for mercury to 30.06 AU (Neptune).Their period of orbital revolution range from 88 days for Mercury to163 years for Neptune. The corresponding mean orbital velocities range
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from 48 Km/s to 5.4Km/s. the orbits of all planets are nearly in the same plane, except Mercury whose orbit is inclined to that of earth by 7. The orbits of the planets are nearly circular; and have eccentricities less than 0.0 except mercury whose eccentricity is 0.21. All the planets rotate as they revolve about the sun. Rotation is the turning of an object on an axis running through it. As distinguished from the revolution, which is the motion of the object as a whole about another object or a point, Jovian planets are rapid rotators. Jupiter rotates rapidly in the period of 9h50m mercury 1 times during its 88 days of revolution about the sun. Venus rotates still more slowly in 243 days but from east to west. Reverse to the rotation of most of the planets (that is retrograde). Some of the planets show marked oblateness or flattening due to their rapid rotation. Some of the orbital and Physical Data of the planets are indicated in the Tables 3.2 and Table 3.3
Planet
Semi major Axis (AU) 0.3871 0.7233 1.000 1.5273 5.2028 9.5388 19.1914 30.0611
Orbital Period (yr) 0.2408 0.6152 1 1.8809 11.862 29.458 84.01 164.79
Orbital Speed (km/s) 47.9 35.0 29.8 24.1 13.1 9.6 6.8 5.4
Orbital Eccentricity (e) 0.206 0.007 0.017 0.093 0.048 0.056 0.046 0.010
Inclination of Orbit to Ecliptic () 7.00 3.39 0.00 1.85 1.31 2.49 0.77 1.77
Rotation Period (days) 58.65 -243.01 0.997 1.026 0.410 0.426 -0.746* 0.718
*
Inclination of Equator to Orbit () 0 177.3 23.4 25.2 3.1 26.7 97.9 29.6
Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Dwarf Planets Ceres Pluto Haumea Makemake Eris
~3 122.5 ? ? ?
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Tables 3.2 Orbital Data of planets Negative values of rotation period indicate that the planet rotates in the direction opposite to that in which it orbits the Sun. This is called retrograde rotation.
Figure 3.2 The inner planets. From left to right: Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars (sizes to scale, interplanetary distances not)
Planet Equatorial Radius (km) 2439.7 1.0 6051.8 1.0 6378.140 1 3396.191 714924 602684 Mean Radiu s (km) 2439.7 1.0 6051.8 1.0 6371.0 001 3389.5 02 69911 6 58232 6 Mass k(x 1024g) 0.3301 0400 0036 4.8673 2000 49 5,9721 9000 60 0.6416 9300 0064 1898.1 319 568.31 9057 Bulk Densit y (g cm3 ) 5.427 007 5.243 003 5.5134 0006 3.9340 0008 1.3262 0004 0.6871 0002 Sidereal Rotation Period (d) 58.6462 -243.018 0.997269 68 1.025956 76 0.41354 0.44401 Sidereal Orbit Period (y) 0.2406\8 467 0.615197 26 1.000017 4 1.880847 6 11.86261 5 29.44749 8 V(1,0) (mag) Geometric Albedo Equatorial Gravity (m s-2) 3.70 8.87 9.80 3.71 24.79 10.44 Escap e Velocit y (km s-1) 4.25 10.36 11.19 5.03 60.20 36.09
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Table 3.3 Physical Data of planets and Pluto The four inner or terrestrial planets have dense, rocky compositions, few or no moons, and no ring systems. They are composed largely of refractory minerals, such as the silicates which form their crusts and mantles, and metals such as iron and nickel, which form their cores. Three of the four inner planets (Venus, Earth and Mars) have atmospheres substantial enough to generate weather; all have impact craters and tectonic surface features such as rift valleys and volcanoes. The term inner planet should not be confused with inferior planet, which designates those planets which are closer to the Sun than Earth is (i.e. Mercury and Venus).
Mercury
Mercury (0.4 AU from the Sun) is the closest planet to the Sun and the smallest planet (0.055 Earth masses). Mercury has no natural satellites, and its only known geological features besides impact craters are lobed ridges or rupes, probably produced by a period of contraction early in its history. Mercury's almost negligible atmosphere consists of atoms blasted off its surface by the solar wind. Its relatively large iron core and thin mantle have not yet been adequately explained. Hypotheses include that its outer layers were stripped off by a giant impact, and that it was prevented from fully accreting by the young Sun's energy.
Venus
Venus (0.7 AU) is close in size to Earth, (0.815 Earth masses) and like Earth, has a thick silicate mantle around an iron core, a substantial atmosphere and evidence of internal geological
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activity. However, it is much drier than Earth and its atmosphere is ninety times as dense. Venus has no natural satellites. It is the hottest planet, with surface temperatures over 400 C, most likely due to the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. No definitive evidence of current geological activity has been detected on Venus, but it has no magnetic field that would prevent depletion of its substantial atmosphere, which suggests that its atmosphere is regularly replenished by volcanic eruptions.
Earth
Earth (1 AU) is the largest and densest of the inner planets, the only one known to have current geological activity, and is the only place in the universe where life is known to exist. Its liquid hydrosphere is unique among the terrestrial planets, and it is also the only planet where plate tectonics has been observed. Earth's atmosphere is radically different from those of the other planets, having been altered by the presence of life to contain 21% free oxygen. It has one natural satellite, the Moon, the only large satellite of a terrestrial planet in the Solar System.
Mars
Mars (1.5 AU) is smaller than Earth and Venus (0.107 Earth masses). It possesses an atmosphere of mostly carbon dioxide with a surface pressure of 6.1 millibars (roughly 0.6 percent that of the Earth's). Its surface, peppered with vast volcanoes such as Olympus Mons and rift valleys such as Valles Marineris, shows geological activity that may have persisted until as recently as 2 million years ago. Its red color comes from iron oxide (rust) in its soil. Mars has two tiny natural satellites (Deimos and Phobos) thought to be captured asteroids.
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Asteroids are mostly small Solar System bodies composed mainly of refractory rocky and metallic minerals. The main asteroid belt occupies the orbit between Mars and Jupiter, between 2.3 and 3.3 AU from the Sun. It is thought to be remnants from the Solar System's formation that failed to coalesce because of the gravitational interference of Jupiter. Asteroids range in size from hundreds of kilometers across to microscopic. All asteroids save the largest, Ceres, are classified as small Solar System bodies, but some asteroids such as Vesta and Hygieia may be reclassed as dwarf planets if they are shown to have achieved hydrostatic equilibrium. The asteroid belt contains tens of thousands, possibly millions, of objects over one kilometer in diameter. Despite this, the total mass of the main belt is unlikely to be more than a thousandth of that of the Earth. The main belt is very sparsely populated; spacecraft routinely pass through without incident. Asteroids with diameters between 10 and 104 m are called meteoroids.
Figure 3.3 Image of the main asteroid belt and the Trojan asteroids
3.6 Ceres
Ceres (2.77 AU) is the largest body in the asteroid belt and is classified as a dwarf planet. It has a diameter of slightly less than
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1000 km, and a mass large enough for its own gravity to pull it into a spherical shape. Ceres was considered a planet when it was discovered in the 19th century, but was reclassified as an asteroid in the 1850s as further observation revealed additional asteroids. It was again reclassified in 2006 as a dwarf planet.
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Figure 3.4 From top to bottom: Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, and Jupiter (not to scale) The four outer planets, or gas giants (sometimes called Jovian planets), collectively make up 99 percent of the mass known to orbit the Sun. Jupiter and Saturn consist overwhelmingly of hydrogen and helium; Uranus and Neptune possess a greater proportion of ices in their makeup. Some astronomers suggest they belong in their own category, ice giants.[ All four gas giants have rings, although only Saturn's ring system is easily observed from Earth. The term outer planet should not be confused with superior planet, which designates planets outside Earth's orbit and thus includes both the outer planets and Mars.
Jupiter
Jupiter (5.2 AU), at 318 Earth masses, is 2.5 times all the mass of all the other planets put together. It is composed largely of hydrogen and helium. Jupiter's strong internal heat creates a number of semi-permanent features in its atmosphere, such as cloud bands and the Great Red Spot. Jupiter has 63 known satellites. The four largest, Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa, show similarities to the terrestrial planets, such as volcanism and internal heating. Ganymede, the largest satellite in the Solar System, is larger than Mercury.
Saturn
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Saturn (9.5 AU), distinguished by its extensive ring system, has several similarities to Jupiter, such as its atmospheric composition and magnetosphere. Although Saturn has 60% of Jupiter's volume, it is less than a third as massive, at 95 Earth masses, making it the least dense planet in the Solar System. Saturn has 60 confirmed satellites; two of which, Titan and Escalades, show signs of geological activity, though they are largely made of ice. Titan is larger than Mercury and the only satellite in the Solar System with a substantial atmosphere.
Uranus
Uranus (19.6 AU), at 14 Earth masses, is the lightest of the outer planets. Uniquely among the planets, it orbits the Sun on its side; its axial tilt is over ninety degrees to the ecliptic. It has a much colder core than the other gas giants, and radiates very little heat into space. Uranus has 27 known satellites, the largest ones being Titania, Oberon, Umbriel, Ariel and Miranda.
Neptune
Neptune (30 AU), though slightly smaller than Uranus, is more massive (equivalent to 17 Earths) and therefore more dense. It radiates more internal heat, but not as much as Jupiter or Saturn. Neptune has 13 known satellites. The largest, Triton, is geologically active, with geysers of liquid nitrogen. Triton is the only large satellite with a retrograde orbit. Neptune is accompanied in its orbit by a number of minor planets, termed Neptune Trojans that are in 1:1 resonance with it.
Comets
Comets are small Solar System bodies, typically only a few kilometers across, composed largely of volatile ices. They have highly eccentric orbits, generally a perihelion within the orbits of the inner planets and an aphelion far beyond Pluto. When a comet enters the inner Solar System, its proximity to the Sun causes its icy surface
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to sublimate and ionize, creating a coma: a long tail of gas and dust often visible to the naked eye.
Figure 3. 5 Comet Hale-Bopp Short-period comets have orbits lasting less than two hundred years. Long-period comets have orbits lasting thousands of years. Shortperiod comets are believed to originate in the Kuiper belt, while longperiod comets, such as Hale-Bopp, are believed to originate in the Oort cloud. Many comet groups, such as the Kreutz Sungrazers, formed from the breakup of a single parent. Some comets with hyperbolic orbits may originate outside the Solar System, but determining their precise orbits is difficult. Old comets that have had most of their volatiles driven out by solar warming are often categorized as asteroids.
3.11 Centaurs
The centaurs are icy comet-like bodies with a semi-major axis greater than Jupiter (5.5 AU) and less than Neptune (30 AU). The largest known centaur, 10199 Chariklo, has a diameter of about 250 km. The first centaur discovered, 2060 Chiron, has also been classified as comet (95P) since it develops a coma just as comets do when they approach the Sun.
and ice. This region is sometimes known as the "outer Solar System", though others use that term to mean the region beyond the asteroid belt.
Kuiper belt
The Kuiper belt, the region's first formation, is a great ring of debris similar to the asteroid belt, but composed mainly of ice. It extends between 30 and 50 AU from the Sun. It is composed mainly of small Solar System bodies, but many of the largest Kuiper belt objects, such as Quaoar, Varuna, and Orcus, may be reclassified as dwarf planets. There are estimated to be over 100,000 Kuiper belt objects with a diameter greater than 50 km, but the total mass of the Kuiper belt is thought to be only a tenth or even a hundredth the mass of the Earth. Many Kuiper belt objects have multiple satellites, and most have orbits that take them outside the plane of the ecliptic.
Figure 3.6 Plot of all known Kuiper belt objects, set against the four outer planets The Kuiper belt can be roughly divided into the "classical" belt and the resonances. Resonances are orbits linked to that of Neptune (e.g. twice for every three Neptune orbits, or once for every two). The first resonance actually begins within the orbit of Neptune itself. The classical belt consists of objects having no resonance with Neptune, and extends from roughly 39.4 AU to 47.7 AU. Members of the classical Kuiper belt are classified as cubewanos, after the first of
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their kind to be discovered, (15760) 1992 QB1, and are still in near primordial, low-eccentricity orbits.
migration. Most scattered disc objects (SDOs) have perihelia within the Kuiper belt but aphelia as far as 150 AU from the Sun. SDOs' orbits are also highly inclined to the ecliptic plane, and are often almost perpendicular to it. Some astronomers consider the scattered disc to be merely another region of the Kuiper belt, and describe scattered disc objects as "scattered Kuiper belt objects." Some astronomers also classify centaurs as inward-scattered Kuiper belt objects along with the outward-scattered residents of the scattered disc.
3.17 Eris
Eris (68 AU average) is the largest known scattered disc object, and caused a debate about what constitutes a planet, since it is at least 5% larger than Pluto with an estimated diameter of 2400 km (1500 mi). It is the largest of the known dwarf planets. It has one moon, Dysnomia. Like Pluto, its orbit is highly eccentric, with a perihelion of 38.2 AU (roughly Pluto's distance from the Sun) and an aphelion of 97.6 AU, and steeply inclined to the ecliptic plane.
Heliopause
The heliosphere is divided into two separate regions. The solar wind travels at roughly 400 km/s until it collides with the interstellar wind; the flow of plasma in the interstellar medium. The collision occurs at the termination shock, which is roughly 80100 AU from the Sun upwind of the interstellar medium and roughly 200 AU from the Sun
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downwind. Here the wind slows dramatically, condenses and becomes more turbulent, forming a great oval structure known as the heliosheath that looks and behaves very much like a comet's tail, extending outward for a further 40 AU on the upwind side but tailing many times that distance downwind. Both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are reported to have passed the termination shock and entered the heliosheath, at 94 and 84 AU from the Sun, respectively. The outer boundary of the heliosphere, the heliopause, it is the point at which the solar wind finally terminates and is the beginning of interstellar space.
Figure 3.7 The Voyagers entering the heliosheath The shape and form of the outer edge of the heliosphere is likely affected by the fluid dynamics of interactions with the interstellar medium as well as solar magnetic fields prevailing to the south, e.g. it is bluntly shaped with the northern hemisphere extending 9 AU (roughly 900 million miles) farther than the southern hemisphere. Beyond the heliopause, at around 230 AU, lies the bow shock, a plasma "wake" left by the Sun as it travels through the Milky Way.
Figure 3.8 The Hubble Space Telescope imaged this view in February 1995. The arcing, graceful structure is actually a bow shock about half a light-year across, created from the
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wind from the star L.L. Orionis colliding with the Orion Nebula flow. NASA's Voyager spacecrafts the Voyager 1 and 2, nearly 15 years after they left home have discovered the first direct evidence of the long- sought-after heliopause -- the boundary that separates Earth's solar system from interstellar space at the distance of 84 AU. Voyager 1 crosses Termination Shock on December 18, 2004 and Voyager 2 crosses Termination Shock on September 5 2007 and has been transmitting valuable data on radiation levels and solar wind back to the Earth, Since passage through the termination shock, the spacecraft has been operating in the heliosheath environment which is still dominated by the Sun's magnetic field and particles contained in the solar wind. The heliosheath exploration phase ends with passage through the heliopause which is the outer extent of the Sun's magnetic field and solar wind. The thickness of the heliosheath is uncertain and could be tens of AU thick taking several years to traverse. Passage through the heliopause begins the interstellar exploration phase with the spacecraft operating in an interstellar wind dominated environment. As per Voyager radio data combined with the plasma measurements taken at the spacecraft that give us a better guess about where the heliopause is. Based on the solar wind speed, the time that has elapsed since the mid-1992 solar event and the strength of the radio emissions, our best guess for the upper limit of the heliopause currently is about 90 to 120 astronomical units (AU) from the sun. Voyager 1 is escaping the solar system at a speed of about 3.6 AU per year, 35 degrees out of the ecliptic plane to the north, in the general direction of the Solar Apex (the direction of the Sun's motion relative to nearby stars). Voyager 2 is also escaping the solar system at a speed of about 3.3 AU per year, 48 degrees out of the ecliptic plane to the south. The Voyagers should cross the heliopause 10 to 20 years after reaching the termination shock. The Voyagers have enough electrical power and thruster fuel to operate at least until 2020. By that time, Voyager 1 will be 12.4 billion miles (19.9 billion KM) from the Sun and Voyager 2 will be 10.5 billion miles (16.9 billion KM) away. Eventually, the Voyagers will pass other stars. In about 40,000 years, Voyager 1
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will drift within 1.6 light years (9.3 trillion miles) of AC+79 3888, a star in the constellation of Camelopardalis. In some 296,000 years, Voyager 2 will pass 4.3 light years (25 trillion miles) from Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. The Voyagers are destinedperhaps eternallyto wander the Milky Way. As of February 2010, Voyager 1 was at a distance of 16.9 Billion Kilometers (112.7 AU) from the sun and Voyager 2 at a distance of 13.7 Billion kilometers (91.5 AU).
that it cannot be part of the scattered disc or the Kuiper belt as its perihelion is too distant to have been affected by Neptune's migration. He and other astronomers consider it to be the first in an entirely new population, which also may include the object 2000 which has a perihelion of 45 AU, an aphelion of 415 AU, and an orbital period of 3,420 years. Brown terms this population the "Inner Oort cloud. As it may have formed through a similar process, although it is far closer to the Sun. Sedna is very likely a dwarf planet, though its shape has yet to be determined with certainty.
3.22 Satellites
The Satellites of the planets are the next prominent members of the solar system.
Natural satellite
A natural satellite or moon is a celestial body that orbits a planet or smaller body, which is called the primary. Technically, the term natural satellite could refer to a planet orbiting a star, or a dwarf galaxy orbiting a major galaxy, but it is normally synonymous with moon and used to identify nonartificial satellites of planets, dwarf planets, and minor planets. As of September 2008, 335 bodies are formally classified as moons. They include 167 orbiting six of the eight planets, 6 orbiting three of the five dwarf planets, 104 asteroid moons, and 58 satellites of Trans-Neptunian objects, some of which will likely turn out to be dwarf planets. Some 150 additional small bodies were observed within Saturn's ring system, but they were not tracked long enough to establish orbits. Planets around other stars are likely to have natural satellites as well, although none have been observed. The large gas giants have extensive systems of moons, including half a dozen comparable in size to Earth's moon: the four Galilean moons, Saturn's Titan, and Neptune's Triton. Saturn has an additional six mid-sized moons massive enough to have achieved hydrostatic equilibrium, and Uranus has five. Of the inner planets, Mercury and Venus have no moons at all; Earth has one
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large moon, known as the Moon; and Mars has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos. It has been suggested that a few moons, notably Europe, one of Jupiter's Galilean moons, may harbor life, though there is currently no direct evidence to support this claim. Among the dwarf planets, Ceres has no moons (though many objects in the asteroid belt do). Pluto has three known satellites, the rather large Charon and the smaller Nix and Hydra. Haumea has two moons, and Eris has one. The Pluto-Charon system is unusual in that the center of mass lies in open space between the two, a characteristic of a double planet system. The natural satellites orbiting relatively close to the planet on prograde orbits (regular satellites) are generally believed to have been formed out of the same collapsing region of the protoplanetary disk that gave rise to its primary. In contrast, irregular satellites (generally orbiting on distant, inclined, eccentric and/or retrograde orbits) are thought to be captured asteroids possibly further fragmented by collisions. The Earth's Moon and possibly Charon are exceptions among large bodies in that they are believed to have originated by the collision of two large proto-planetary objects (see the giant impact hypothesis). The material that would have been placed in orbit around the central body is predicted to have reaccreted to form one or more orbiting moons. As opposed to planetary-sized bodies, asteroid moons are thought to commonly form by this process.
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Figure 3.8 Selected moons, with the Earth to scale. Nineteen moons are large enough to be round, and one, Titan, has a substantial atmosphere. Triton is another exception, which although large and in a close, circular orbit, is thought to be a captured dwarf planet.
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Figure 3.9 Two moons: Saturn's moon Dione occults Encel adus Origin
Orbital characteristics
Satellite orbits are called regular or prograde if they are in the same direction as the planet's rotation otherwise they are called irregular or retrograde (The term irregular can also refer to the shape of a satellite). Most of the major moons in the solar system have regular orbits (Triton being the exception) while most of the small moons have irregular orbits Tidal locking The regular natural satellites in the solar system are tidally locked to their primaries, meaning that the same side of the moon always faces the planet. The only known exception is Saturn's moon Hyperion, which rotates chaotically because of the gravitational influence of Titan. In contrast, the outer moons of the gas giants (irregular satellites) are too far away to have become locked. For example, Jupiter's moon Himalia, Saturn's moon Phoebe, and Neptune's moon Nereid have rotation period in the range of ten hours, while their orbital periods are hundreds of days. Satellites of satellites No moons of moons (natural satellites that orbit the natural satellite of another body) are known. In most cases, the tidal effects of the primary would make such a system unstable.
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Figure 3.10 Artist impression of Rhea's rings However, calculations performed after the recent detection of a possible ring system around Saturn's moon Rhea indicate that Rhean orbits would be stable. Furthermore, the suspected rings are thought to be narrow, a phenomenon normally associated with shepherd moons. Trojan satellites Two moons are known to have small companions at their L4 and L5 Lagrangian points, sixty degrees ahead and behind the body in its orbit. These companions are called Trojan moons, as their orbits are analogous to the Trojan asteroids of Jupiter. The Trojan moons are Telesto and Calypso, which are the leading and following companions respectively of Tethys; and Helene and Polydeuces, the leading and following companions of Dione.
1. Asteroid moon
The discovery of 243 Ida's moon Dactyl in the early 1990s confirmed that some asteroids have moons; indeed, 87 Sylvia has two. Some, such as 90 Antiope, are double asteroids with two comparably sized components. The relative masses of the moons of the Solar system. Mimas, Enceladus, and Miranda are too small to be visible at this scale. All the irregularly shaped moons, even added together, would also be too small to be visible. The largest natural satellites in the Solar System (those bigger than about 3000 km across) are Earth's moon, Jupiter's Galilean moons (Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto), Saturns moon Titan, and Neptunes captured moon Triton. For smaller moons see the articles on the appropriate planet. In addition to the moons of the various planets there are also over 80 known moons of the dwarf planets, asteroids and other small solar system bodies. Some studies estimate that up to 15% of all trans-Neptunian objects could have satellites
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Figure 3.11 The relative masses of the moons of the Solar system Table 3.4 present the comparative view of the natural satellites by classifying the moons of the solar system by diameter. The column on the right includes some notable planets, dwarf planets, asteroids, and Trans-Neptunian Objects for comparison. The moons of the planets are named after mythological figures. These are predominately Greek, except for the Uranian moons, which are named after Shakespearean characters. The nineteen bodies massive enough to have achieved hydrostatic equilibrium are in bold in the chart below and labeled on the chart at right, though a few of the smaller ones are not visible at the scale of the chart. Minor planets suspected but not proven to have achieved a hydrostatic equilibrium are also shown.
3.23 Terminology
The first known natural satellite was the Moon (Luna in Latin). Until the discovery of the Galilean satellites in 1610, however, there was no opportunity for referring to such objects as a class. Galileo chose
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Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Pluto
Haumea Eris
60008000
Mars
40006000
Mercury
30004000
The Moon
Io Europa
20003000
Triton
Eris Pluto
15002000
Rhea
Titania Oberon
Makemake Haumea
10001500
Umbriel Ariel
Charon
5001000
Enceladus
Ceres 20000 Varuna 28978 Ixion 2 Pallas, 4 Vesta many more TNOs
250-500
Mimas Hyperion
Miranda
Proteus Nereid
Hiiaka
100-250
88
50-100
Elara Pasipha
Hydra Nix
50000 Quaoar I Weywot 90 Antiope I 90 Antiope I 42355 58534 Logos Typhon I and many Echidna others 58534 Logos I Zoe 5 more moons of TNOs
25-50
Carme Siarnaq Metis Helene Sinope Albiorix Lysithea Atlas Ananke Pan
10-25
762 Pulcova I 87 Sylvia I Romulus 624 Hektor I (45) Eugenia 433 Eros I Petit1313 Berna Prince and many 121 others Hermione I 283 Emma I 1313 Berna I 107 Camilla I
less than 10
at least 47
at least 35
Table 3.4 Size of the Satellites of the planets to refer to his discoveries as Planet ("planets"), but later discoverers chose other terms to distinguish them from the objects they orbited. Christiaan Huygens, the discoverer of Titan, was the first
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to use the term moon for such objects, calling Titan Luna Saturni or Luna Saturnia "Saturn's moon" or "The Saturnian moon", because it stood in the same relation to Saturn as the Moon did to the Earth. The first to use of the term satellite to describe orbiting bodies was the German astronomer Johannes Kepler in his pamphlet Narratio de Observatis a se quatuor Iovis sattelitibus erronibus ("Narration about Four Satellites of Jupiter Observed") in 1610. He derived the term from the Latin word satelles, meaning "guard", "attendant", or "companion", because the satellites accompanied their primary planet in their journey through the heavens. As additional moons of Saturn were discovered the term "moon" was abandoned. Giovanni Domenico Cassini sometimes referred to his discoveries as planets in French, but more often as satellites. The term satellite thus became the normal one for referring to an object orbiting a planet, as it avoided the ambiguity of "moon". In 1957, however, the launching of the artificial object Sputnik created a need for new terminology. The terms man-made satellite or artificial moon were very quickly abandoned in favor of the simpler satellite, and as a consequence, the term has come to be linked primarily with artificial objects flown in space including, sometimes, even those which are not in orbit around a planet. As a consequence of this shift in meaning, the term moon, which had continued to be used in a generic sense in works of popular science and in fiction, has regained respectability and is now used interchangeably with satellite, even in scientific articles. When it is necessary to avoid both the ambiguity of confusion with the Earth's moon on the one hand, and artificial satellites on the other, the term natural satellite (using "natural" in a sense opposed to "artificial") is used.
kilometer across, has been identified as a moon, though objects a tenth that size within Saturn's rings, which have not been directly observed, have been called moonlets. Small asteroid moons, such as Dactyl, have also been called moonlets. The upper limit is also vague. When the masses of two orbiting bodies are similar enough that one cannot be said to orbit the other, they are described as a double body rather than primary and satellite. Asteroids such as 90 Antiope are considered double asteroids, but they have not forced a clear definition as to what constitutes a moon. Some authors consider the PlutoCharon system to be a double (dwarf) planet. The most common dividing line on what is considered a moon rests upon whether the barycenter is below the surface of the larger body, though this is somewhat arbitrary, as it relies on distance as well as relative mass.
Figure 3.13 Comparison of Jupiter's Great Red Spot and Jupiter's four largest moons. Compared to Earth/Luna and Pluto/Charon, there is a much greater difference in mass.
Much of our Solar System is still unknown. The Sun's gravitational field is estimated to dominate the gravitational forces of surrounding stars out to about two light years (125,000 AU). Lower estimates for the radius of the Oort cloud, by contrast, do not place it farther than 50,000 AU. Despite discoveries such as Sedna, the region between the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud, an area tens of thousands of AU in radius, is still virtually unmapped. There are also ongoing studies of the region between Mercury and the Sun. Objects may yet be discovered in the Solar System's uncharted regions.
life in the last 35,000 years by flinging pieces of expelled stellar core towards the Sun in the form of radioactive dust grains and larger, comet-like bodies.
3.27 Neighborhood
The immediate galactic neighborhood of the Solar System is known as the Local Interstellar Cloud or Local Fluff, an area of dense cloud in an otherwise sparse region known as the Local Bubble, an hourglass-shaped cavity in the interstellar medium roughly 300 light years across. The bubble is suffused with high-temperature plasma that suggests it is the product of several recent supernovae. There are relatively few stars within ten light years (95 trillion km) of the Sun. The closest is the triple star system Alpha Centauri, which is about 4.4 light years away. Alpha Centauri A and B are a closely tied pair of Sun-like stars, while the small red dwarf Alpha Centauri C (also known as Proxima Centauri) orbits the pair at a distance of 0.2 light years. The stars next closest to the Sun are the red dwarfs Barnard's Star (at 5.9 light years), Wolf 359 (7.8 light years) and Lalande 21185 (8.3 light years). The largest star within ten light years is Sirius, a bright main sequence star roughly twice the Sun's mass and orbited by a white dwarf called Sirius B. It lies 8.6 light years away. The remaining systems within ten light years are the binary red dwarf system Luyten 726-8 (8.7 light years) and the solitary red dwarf Ross 154 (9.7 light years). Our closest solitary sunlike star is Tau Ceti, which lies 11.9 light years away. It has roughly 80 percent the Sun's mass, but only 60 percent its luminosity. The closest known extrasolar planet to the Sun lies around the star Epsilon Eridani, a star slightly dimmer and redder than the Sun, which lies 10.5 light years away. Its one confirmed planet, Epsilon Eridani b, is roughly 1.5 times Jupiter's mass and orbits its star every 6.9 years.
Summery
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The Sun is classified as a type G2 yellow dwarf; it lies right in the middle of the main sequence in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram - a graph which plots the brightness of stars against their surface temperatures. The high metallicity is thought to have been crucial to the Sun's developing a planetary system, because planets are formed from accretion of "metals". The main components of interplanetary medium namely interplanetary dust and interplanetary gas.
The outer boundary of the heliosphere, the heliopause, it is the point at which the solar wind finally terminates and is the beginning of interstellar space. Much of our Solar System is still unknown. The Sun's gravitational field is estimated to dominate the gravitational forces of surrounding stars out to about two light years (125,000 AU).
The masses of the planets in terms of earths mass varies in the range from 0.055 (Mercury) to 318 (Jupiter). The mass of the Jupiter is greater than that of all other planets combined together. As of September 2008, 335 bodies are formally classified as moons. They include 167 orbiting six of the eight planets, 6 orbiting three of the five dwarf planets. Every body with an identified orbit, some as small as a kilometer across, has been identified as a moon. The Sun's gravitational field is estimated to dominate the gravitational forces of surrounding stars out to about two light years (125,000 AU). Our Sun resides in one of the Milky Way's outer spiral arms, known as the Orion Arm There are relatively few stars within ten light years (95 trillion km) of the Sun. The closest is the triple star system Alpha Centauri, which is about 4.4 light years away. Our closest solitary sun-like star is Tau Ceti, which lies 11.9 light years away.
The closest known extrasolar planet to the Sun lies around the star Epsilon Eridani, a star.
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Exercises
Fill in the blanks 1. The oldest stars contain few_______, while stars born later have more. 2. The visible part of the sun is ___________ Km across. 3. The interplanetary dust can be considered as sparse distribution of ___________ throughout the solar system. 4. Earth's _____________ stops its atmosphere from being stripped away by the solar wind. 5. The heliosphere partially shields the _____________, and planetary magnetic fields. 6. Most of the material of the solar system that is not a part of the sun itself is concentrated in the __________. 7. The inner Solar System is the traditional name for the region comprising the _____________ and asteroids. 8. _________ are mostly small Solar System bodies composed mainly of refractory rocky and metallic minerals. 9. Ceres (2.77 AU) is the largest body in the asteroid belt and is classified as a ______________ planet.
10. The Solar System is located in the ___________ Galaxy. 11. Epsilon Eridani b is one confirmed ___________ planet.
Short questions with answer Q1. Describe the main characteristics of population I and II stars? Ans. The population stars are born in the later stages of the evolution of universe thus; they contain more elements heavier than hydrogen and helium ("metals" in astronomical parlance) than older population II stars. Q2. When and where elements heavier than hydrogen and helium are formed? Ans. Elements heavier than hydrogen and helium were formed in the cores of ancient and exploding stars, so the first generation of stars had to die before the universe could be enriched with these atoms. The oldest stars contain few metals, while stars born later have more. Q3. What keep the entire sun gaseous? Ans. The high temperature of its interior and consequent thermonuclear reactions keeps the entire sun gaseous. The
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Q4. Ans.
Q7. Ans.
Q8. Ans.
Q9. Ans.
tremendous pressure is produced by the great weight of the suns layers. If the suns interior is gaseous. Why we cannot see through it? There is no distinct surface we observe optically only the level in the sun at which the gases become opaque and prevent us from seeing deep into its interior. The temperature of that region is about 6000 K. Relatively, sparse outer gases extends for millions of kilometers into space in all directions. The visible part of the sun is 1,390.000 Km across. This is 109 times the diameter of the earth. Which is the largest structure in the heliosphere? The largest structure within the heliosphere is the heliospheric current sheet, a spiral form created by the actions of the Sun's rotating magnetic field on the interplanetary medium. Name the disk like regions of the interplanetary medium? The interplanetary medium is home to at least two disc-like regions of cosmic dust. The first, the zodiacal dust cloud, lies in the inner Solar System and causes zodiacal light. It was likely formed by collisions within the asteroid belt brought on by interactions with the planets. The second extends from about 10 AU to about 40 AU, and was probably created by similar collisions within the Kuiper belt. What is the composition of the four inner or terrestrial planets? The four inner or terrestrial planets have dense, rocky compositions, few or no moons, and no ring systems. They are composed largely of refractory minerals, such as the silicates which form their crusts and mantles, and metals such as iron and nickel, which form their cores. Where is the main asteroid belt situated? The main asteroid belt occupies the orbit between Mars and Jupiter, between 2.3 and 3.3 AU from the Sun. It is thought to be remnants from the Solar System's formation that failed to coalesce because of the gravitational interference of Jupiter. What is the structure of the Kuiper belt? The Kuiper belt, the region's first formation, is a great ring of debris similar to the asteroid belt, but composed mainly of ice. It extends between 30 and 50 AU from the Sun. It is composed mainly of small Solar System bodies, but many of the largest Kuiper belt objects, such as Quaoar, Varuna, and Orcus, may be reclassified as dwarf planets.
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Q10. What is the number of moons in the solar system? Ans. As of September 2008, 335 bodies are formally classified as moons. They include 167 orbiting six of the eight planets, 6 orbiting three of the five dwarf planets, 104 asteroid moons, and 58 satellites of Trans-Neptunian objects, some of which will likely turn out to be dwarf planets. Some 150 additional small bodies were observed within Saturn's ring system, but they were not tracked long enough to establish orbits. Planets around other stars are likely to have natural satellites as well, although none have been observed. Q11. What do you understand by tidal locking? Ans. The regular natural satellites in the solar system are tidally locked to their primaries, meaning that the same side of the moon always faces the planet. The only known exception is Saturn's moon Hyperion, which rotates chaotically because of the gravitational influence of Titan. Q12. What is the location of the solar system in the Galaxy?what is solar system's cosmic year? Ans. The Solar System is located in the Milky Way Galaxy, a barred spiral galaxy with a diameter of about 100,000 lightyears containing about 200 billion stars. Our Sun resides in one of the Milky Way's outer spiral arms, known as the Orion Arm or Local Spur. The Sun lies between 25,000 and 28,000 light years from the Galactic Centre, and its speed within the galaxy is about 220 kilometers per second, so that it completes one revolution every 225250 million years. This revolution is known as the Solar System's cosmic year. Q13. How the location of solar system in the galaxy does is helpful in the development of life on earth? Ans. The Solar System's location in the galaxy is very likely a factor in the evolution of life on Earth. Its orbit is close to being circular and is at roughly the same speed as that of the spiral arms, which means it passes through them only rarely. Since spiral arms are home to a far larger concentration of potentially dangerous supernovae, this has given Earth long periods of interstellar stability for life to evolve. The Solar System also lies well outside the star-crowded environs of the galactic centre. Near the centre, gravitational tugs from nearby stars could perturb bodies in the Oort cloud and send many comets into the inner Solar System, producing collisions with potentially
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catastrophic implications for life on Earth. The intense radiation of the galactic centre could also interfere with the development of complex life. Even at the Solar System's current location, some scientists have hypothesized that recent supernovae may have adversely affected life in the last 35,000 years by flinging pieces of expelled stellar core towards the Sun in the form of radioactive dust grains and larger, comet-like bodies. Q14. Which is the closest extra solar planet? Ans. The closest known extra solar planet to the Sun lies around the star Epsilon Eridani, a star slightly dimmer and redder than the Sun, which lies 10.5 light years away. Its one confirmed planet, Epsilon Eridani b, is roughly 1.5 times Jupiter's mass and orbits its star every 6.9 years. Study Questions Q1. How we can classify the sun? Q3. Why we do not observe distinct surface on the sun? Q4. Give main characteristics of the planets. Q5. What is inner solar system? Q6. What do you understand with outer solar system? Q7. What are dwarf planets? Name and give their characteristics? Q8. What is the extent of the solar system? Q9. What are natural satellites? How they are different from the artificial satellites? Q10. How we define moons? Write a note on the geological activities in them? Q11. What is the immediate galactic neighborhood of solar system? Q12. Write note on: Asteroid Belt Haumea and Makemake Asteroid group Oorts cloud Asteroid Moon Pluto and Charon Centaurs Scattered Disk Ceres Sedna Comets Trans Neptunian region Eris Trojan satellites
Chapter 4
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Johannes Kepler (December 27, 1571 November 15, 1630) was German mathemati cian, astronomer a nd astrologer, and key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution. He is best known for his eponymous laws of planetary motion
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 [OS: 25 December 1642 20 March 1726]) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential people in human history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophi Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics.
Celestial Mechanics
4.1 Bodes Law:
The discovery of Uranus brought Herschel great fame. It also brought delight to the German astronomer Johann Bode, because it fitted beautifully into the sequence of numbers announced in 1772 by David Titius, which described the approximate distance of the planets from the sun. Bode has been so impressed with Titius progression that he published it in his own introductory astronomy text and the sequence became known as Bodes law. The sequence is obtained by writing down the numbers 0, 3, 6, 12, -------, each succeeding
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number in the sequence (after the first) being double the preceding one. If 4 is now added to each number and the sum is divided by 10, the resulting numbers are the approximate radii of the orbits of the planets in the Astronomical units, as it can be seen in Table 4.1. Titius Progression (0 + 4)/10 = 0.4 (3 + 4)/10 = 0.7 (6 + 4)/10 = 1.0 (12 + 4)/10 = 1.6 (24 + 4)/10 = 2.8 (48+ 4)/10 = 5.2 (96 + 4)/10 = 10.0 (192+ 4)/10 = 19.6 (384 + 4)/10 = 38.8 (768 + 4)/10 = 77.2 Table 4.1 Bodes law The rule breakdown completely for Neptune and Pluto, but these planets were not known at the time of Bode. The fact that Uranus fit so well into the scheme suggested to Bode that the progression was law of nature which led him to expect unknown planet in the orbit of semi major axis 2.8 Aus. Most of the Asteroids have the orbits near 2.8 Au. Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto 5.203 9.539 19.190 30.100 39.500 Planet Mercury Venus Earth Mars Actual Mean Distance (AU) 0.387 0.732 1.000 1.524
1. 2.
First Law: Each planet moves about the sun in a orbit that is
an ellipse, with the sun at one focus of the ellipse.
At the time of publication of New Astronomy (1609) Kepler appear to have demonstrated the validity of the two laws only for the case of Mars. However, he expressed his opinion that they held also for the other planets.
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Figure 4.1 Keplers Method of Triangulating the distance to Mars. Subtraction of angles SE1E2 and SE2E1 from SE1M and SE2M respectively gives the angles E2E1M and E1E2M both in the triangle E1M E2. In that later triangle since two angles and an included side are known, sides E1M and E2M and the third angle can be found. Finally, the distance of Mars from the sun (in terms of the earths distance) can be found from either triangle SE1M or SE2M. Kepler found the distance of Mars from the sun or five points along its orbit by choosing from Tychos records the elongation of Mars on each of the five pair of dates separated from each other by the interval of 687 days.
Kepler published his discovery in 1619 in the Harmony of the Worlds where he said. We find, therefore, under this orderly arrangement, a wonderful symmetry in the universe, and a definite relation of harmony in the motion and magnitude of the orbs, of a kind that is not possible to obtain in any other way. The relation is known as his third or harmonic law.
exactly , except for Jupiter and Saturn, for which there are very slight discrepancy. Decades later, Newton gave an explanation for discrepancies, but within the limit of accuracy of the observational data available in 1619, Kepler was justified in considering his formula to be exact. The Harmony of the world deals with Keplers attempts to associate numerical relations in the solar system with music; indeed, he tried to derive the notes of the music played by the planets as they move harmoniously in their orbits. The earth for example play the notes mi, fa, mi, which he took to symbolize the miseria (misery), fames(famine), miseria of our planet. Planets Semi Major Axis of the Orbit, a (AU) 0.387 0.723 1.000 1.524 5.203 9.534 Sidereal Period, P (years) 0.241 0.615 1.000 1.881 11.862 29.456 a3 P2
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from the sun or which the planet can just barely escape the solar system along a parabolic orbit. This critical speed is called parabolic velocity or velocity of escape. In order to prove that the gravitational force between the sun and a planet must result in an orbit for the planet that is a circle, an ellipse, parabola or hyperbola. To solve this problem Newton used his fluxions, which we now call differential calculus. He showed in fact, that the gravitational interaction between any two bodies would result in an orbital motion of each body about the other that is some form of conic section. Circular and the parabolic orbits require theoretically precise speed that would not be expected to occur in nature, thus we would not expect to find a planet (or other object) with exactly a circular or parabolic orbit. The later divides the family of elliptical (closed) from the family of hyperbolic (open) orbits that actually occur in nature The planets, of course, do not have hyperbolic orbits or they would long since have receded into interstellar space; their orbits then must be elliptical, as found by Kepler.
Consider a planet at A revolving about the sun at S as indicated in Figure 4.3. In short interval of time the planets forward velocity would ordinarily carry it to B. However, the gravitational pull between it and the sun accelerates it to C, since we are considering a very brief interval of time. We can regard the acceleration of the planet as being along the direction BC parallel to AS, the direction of from the planet to the sun at the beginning of the instant. The planet now has the velocity along the direction of AC. In the next brief interval of time,
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equal in length to the first interval, the planet would ordinarily continue moving in a straight line or a constant speed and would end up at D, along the extension of AC so that the distance CD was equal to the distance AC. However, again the sun accelerates the planet towards it (now in the direction Cs) so the planet actually moves along CE. Consider AC and CD to be basis of the triangles ASC and CSD, respectively. Since AC = CD, the two triangles have equal bases. They also have same altitudes. - The perpendicular distance of S from AD or its extension. Thus triangles ASC and CSD having equal bases and altitudes have equal areas.
Figure 4.3 Geometrical Proof of the law of areas. Since triangles ASC and CSE are both equal in area to the triangle SCD, they are equal in area to each other. These are the area swept out by a line from the planet to the sun in two successive intervals of time. Many such brief intervals of time can be combined too show that the areas swept out any two equal intervals of time are equal, thus Keplers second law is verified.
For body 1
m142 r1 P2 m242 r2 P2
For body 2
If we cancel out the masses common to each side of each equation and add the two equations we obtain
Since (r1 + r2) is the distance between the two bodies we recognize it, in case of a planet going around the sun in a circular orbit as a semimajor axis a of the relative orbit . Then the above equation looks the same as the formula for Keplers third law (P2 = a3) except for the factor (m1+ m2) and 42/G. The later is simply a constant of proportionality. If the proper units are chosen for the distance and time, G will take such a value that 42/G.will equal unity. We discuss below why Kepler was not aware of the factor (m1+ m2). Newton derived his equations not only for the planets moving about the sun but also for any pair of mutually revolving bodies- two stars, a planet and a satellite, or even a plate and a spoon revolving about each other in the space. Newtons version of Keplers third law differ from the original in that it contains a factor the sum of the masses of two bodies. It becomes clear why Kepler was not aware of that term if we note that we can consider the sun and the earth to be the pair of mutually revolving bodies. We know that the mass of the sun is about 300,000 times that
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of the earth. Thus the combined mass of the sun and the earth is, to all intend and purposes the mass of the sun itself, the earths mass being negligible in comparison. Suppose we chose the mass of the sun to our unit of mass. Then, in the earth - sun system (m1+ m2) = 1. Furthermore, the sum of masses of the sun and any other planet is also very nearly unity. Even Jupiter the most massive planet, has only 1/1000 of the mass of the sun, for the sun and Jupiter (m1+ m2) = 1.001, a number so nearly equal to 1.000 that Kepler was unable to detect the difference from Tychos observations. The fact that the masses of Jupiter and Saturn are not completely negligible compared to the sun accounts, in part, for the slight discrepancies in the Keplers versions of Third law as applied to Jupiter and Saturn (See Table 4.2) thus if we apply the equation Newton derived to the mutual revolution of the sun an a planet, and chose years and astronomical units as units of time and distance. And the solar mass as the unit of mass. Newtons equation reduces to (m1+ m2) P2 = (1) P2 = a3 .
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I Unit of (m1+ m2) Units of P Units of a Suns mass + earths mass Sidereal Year Astronomical unit
II earths mass + Moons mass Sidereal month Mean distance of moon from earth
and its parent planet as a pair of mutually revolving bodies. We measure the period of revolution of the satellite (say sidereal months) and the distance of the satellite from the planet (in terms of distance of the moon from the earth) and insert these values in the equation (m1+ m2) = a3 P2 Since both a and p are observed, we can immediately calculate the combined mass of the planet and its satellite. Obviously most of the mass belong to the planet; its satellite will be very small compared to it. Thus, m1+ m2 is, essentially the mass of the planet in terms of mass of the earth. To demonstrate it numerically, let us consider, Deimos the outermost satellite of Mars, has the sidereal period of 1.262 days and the mean distance from the center of mass of 23,500 kilometers. In sidereal months the period of satellite is 1.262/27.3 = 0.0462 in terms of distance of the moon from the earth. Deimos has the distance from the center of mass 23500 = 0.0611 384,404 Thus the mass of the Mars plus the mass of the Deimos mMars + mDeimos = (0.0611)3 (0.0462)2 = 2.8 x 10-4 = 0.11 x earths Mass 2.13 x 10-3 Since the Deimos is very small satellite (only about 13 Km across) its mass can be neglected compared to that of the Mars, and we find that the Mars has the mass just over one tenth of the earth.
force between the planet and the sun. Thus the force on two bodies with masses m1 and m2 separated by a distance d is given by F = G m1m2/d2 Here G is constant of proportionality in the equation, is a number called the constant of gravitation whose value depends on units of mass, distance and force used. The actual value of G has been determined by laboratory measurements of the attractive force between two material bodies. If metric units are used G has numerical value of 6.67 x 10-8. The above equation expresses Newtons law of universal gravitation which is stated as Between any two objects anywhere in the space their exists a force of attraction that is in proportion to the product of the masses of the objects and inverse proportion to the square of the distance between them.
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Thus the mass of the earth can be calculated. As the values of g, and R are known.
Summery
1. Keplers first two laws of planetary motion were his most important contribution in The New Astronomy 2. First Law: Each planet moves about the sun in a orbit that is an ellipse, with the sun at one focus of the ellipse.
3. Second Law: (The Law of Areas) the straight line joining a
planet and the sun sweeps out equal areas in orbit al plane in equal interval of time. 4. Kepler determined the distance between Mars and the sun or various positions of the planet in its orbit by problem of triangulation. 5. Kepler believed in underlying the harmony in the nature, and he constantly searched for numerological relations in the celestial realm.
6. Keplers third Law states that the square of the sidereal periods
of the planets is in direct proportion to the cubes of the semi major axes of their orbits.
7. The Harmony of the world deals with Keplers attempts to
associate numerical relations in the solar system with music 8. Newtons law of universal gravitation which is stated as Between any two objects anywhere in the space their exists a force of attraction that is in proportion to the product of the masses of the objects and inverse proportion to the square of the distance between them.
Exercises
Fill in the blanks 1. The sequence of numbers announced in 1772 by David Titius, which described the approximate distance of the planets from the _________. 2. Titius progression that he published it in his own introductory astronomy text and __________ became known as Bodes law.
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3. Each planet moves about the sun in a orbit that is an ellipse, with the sun at one focus of the __________. 4. The straight line joining a __________ and the sun sweeps out equal areas in orbit al plane in equal interval of time. 5. Kepler believed in underlying the harmony in the nature, and he constantly searched for ___________ relations in the celestial realm. 6. Because the planetary axes are __________, the distance between a given planet and the sun varies. 7. The Square of the ___________ of the planets is in direct proportion to the _________ of the semi major axes of their orbits.
8. If the bodies are permanently associated, their orbit will be
_________. If they are not permanently associated, their orbits will be ____________.
9. (m1+ m2) P2
__________.
10. If metric units are used Universal Gravitation (G) has numerical value of ___________. Short questions with answer Q1. How Titus sequence can be obtained? Ans. David Titius, sequence which described the approximate distance of the planets from the sun also known as Bodes law is obtained by writing down the numbers 0, 3, 6, 12, -------, each succeeding number in the sequence (after the first) being double the preceding one. If 4 is now added to each number and the sum is divided by 10, the resulting numbers are the approximate radii of the orbits of the planets in the Astronomical units, Q2. What is Keplers first law? What correction did the Newton introduced? Ans. According to Keplers first law each planet moves about the sun in an orbit that is an ellipse, with the sun at one focus of the ellipse. On the other hand the Newton applied Laws of Motion and gravitation as proposed by him and modified the Keplers laws according to the modification the law states that If two bodies interact gravitationally, each will describe an orbit that is
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a conic section about the common center of mass of the pair. In particular, if the bodies are permanently associated, their orbit will be ellipse. If they are not permanently associated, their orbits will be hyperbola. Q3. What is Keplers law of areas? Ans. The Keplers second also known as Law of areas states that the straight line joining a planet and the sun sweeps out equal areas in orbit al plane in equal interval of time. Q3. What is Keplers Third law? Ans. If the bodies revolve mutually about each other, the sum of their masses times the square of their period of mutual revolution is in proportion to the cube of the semimajor axis of the relative orbit of one about the other. Q4. How we can measure the masses of the astronomical bodies? Ans. The only means of measuring the masses of the astronomical bodies is to study the way in which they react gravitationally with other bodies. Study Questions Q1. What is the eccentricity of the orbit of the planet whose distance from the sun varies from 180 million to 220 million kilometers? Q3. The earths distance from the sun varies from 147.2 million to 152.1 million kilometers. What is the eccentricity of the object? Q4. Consider Keplers third law as given in section 4.5, carefully explain why K= 1 when a is measured in astronomical units and p2 in years? Q5. What is the period of the planet whose orbit has semi major axis of 4.0 AU? Q6. What would be the distance from the sun of a planet whose period is 45.66 days? Q7. Suppose Kepler law applies to the motion of Jupiters satellite Io round that planet, and that one of the satellite has period of 5.196 times as long as another one. What will be the ratio of semimajor axes of their orbits? Q8. Why does the Newtons version of Keplers third law has the form (m1+ m2) P2 = a3 ? Q9. A cow attempted to jump over the moon but landed into the orbit around the moon. Describe how the cow could be used to determine the mass of the moon?
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Stars
Unit III
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Chapter 5
Sir Frederick William Herschel, (15 November 1738 25 August 1822) was a British astronomer, technical expert, and a composer.. Herschel became most famous for the discovery of the planet Uranus in addition to several of its major moons such as Titania and Oberon. He also discovered infrared radiation.
Stars
Historically, stars have been important to civilizations throughout the world. They have been part of religious practices and for celestial navigation and orientation. As has been said by the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson Teach me your mood, O patient stars. Who climb each night, the ancient sky. leaving on space no shade, no scars, no trace of age, no fear to die. Many ancient astronomers believed that stars were permanently affixed to a heavenly sphere, and that they were immutable. By convention, astronomers grouped stars into constellations and used them to track the motions of the planets and the inferred position of the Sun. The motion of the Sun against the background stars (and the horizon) was used to create calendars, which could be used to regulate agricultural practices. The Gregorian calendar, currently used nearly everywhere in the world, is a solar calendar based on the angle of the Earth's rotational axis relative to the nearest star, the Sun. The oldest accurately dated star chart appeared in Ancient Egypt in 1,534 BC. The Greek astronomer Aristillus created the first star catalogue in approximately
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300 BC, with the help of Timocharis. Ptolemy's star catalogue was based on an earlier record by Hipparchus from the 2nd century BC.
Figure 5.1: People have seen patterns in the stars since ancient times. This 1690 depiction of the constellation of Leo, the lion, is by Johannes Hevelius. Hipparchus is known for the discovery of the first nova (new star). Islamic astronomers gave to many stars Arabic names which are still used today, and they invented numerous astronomical instruments which could compute the positions of the stars. In the 11th century, Ab Rayhn al-Brn described the Milky Way galaxy as multitude of fragments having the properties of nebulous stars, and also gave the latitudes of various stars during a lunar eclipse in 1019. In spite of the apparent immutability of the heavens, Chinese astronomers were aware that new stars could appear. Early European astronomers such as Tycho Brahe identified new stars in the night sky (later termed novae), suggesting that the heavens were not immutable. In 1584 Giordano Bruno suggested that the stars were actually other suns, and may have other planets, possibly even Earth-like, in orbit around them, an idea that had been suggested earlier by such ancient Greek philosophers as Democritus and Epicurus. By the following century the idea of the stars as distant suns was reaching a consensus among astronomers.
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To explain why these stars exerted no net gravitational pull on the solar system, Isaac Newton suggested that the stars were equally distributed in every direction, an idea prompted by the theologian Richard Bentley. The Italian astronomer Geminiano Montanari recorded observing variations in luminosity of the star Algol in 1667. Edmond Halley published the first measurements of the proper motion of a pair of nearby "fixed" stars, demonstrating that they had changed positions from the time of the ancient Greek astronomers Ptolemy and Hipparchus. The first direct measurement of the distance to a star (61 Cygni at 11.4 light-years) was made in 1838 by Friedrich Bessel using the parallax technique. Parallax measurements demonstrated the vast separation of the stars in the heavens. William Herschel was the first astronomer to attempt to determine the distribution of stars in the sky. During the 1780s, he performed a series of gauges in 600 directions, and counted the stars observed along each line of sight. From this he deduced that the number of stars steadily increased toward one side of the sky, in the direction of the Milky Way core. His son John Herschel repeated this study in the southern hemisphere and found a corresponding increase in the same direction. In addition to his other accomplishments, William Herschel is also noted for his discovery that some stars do not merely lie along the same line of sight, but are also physical companions that form binary star systems. The science of stellar spectroscopy was pioneered by Joseph von Fraunhofer and Angelo Secchi. By comparing the spectra of stars such as Sirius to the Sun, they found differences in the strength and number of their absorption linesthe dark lines in a stellar spectra due to the absorption of specific frequencies by the atmosphere. In 1865 Secchi began classifying stars into spectral types. However, the modern version of the stellar classification scheme was developed by Annie J. Cannon during the 1900s. Observation of double stars gained increasing importance during the 19th century. In 1834, Friedrich Bessel observed changes in the proper motion of the star Sirius, and inferred a hidden companion. Edward Pickering discovered the first spectroscopic binary in 1899 when he observed the periodic splitting of the spectral lines of the
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star Mizar in a 104 day period. Detailed observations of many binary star systems were collected by astronomers such as William Struve and S. W. Burnham, allowing the masses of stars to be determined from computation of the orbital elements. The first solution to the problem of deriving an orbit of binary stars from telescope observations was made by Felix Savary in 1827. The twentieth century saw increasingly rapid advances in the scientific study of stars. The photograph became a valuable astronomical tool. Karl Schwarzschild discovered that the color of a star, and hence its temperature, could be determined by comparing the visual magnitude against the photographic magnitude. The development of the photoelectric photometer allowed very precise measurements of magnitude at multiple wavelength intervals. In 1921 Albert A. Michelson made the first measurements of a stellar diameter using an interferometer on the Hooker telescope. Important conceptual work on the physical basis of stars occurred during the first decades of the twentieth century. In 1913, the Herhzsprung-Russell diagram was developed, propelling the astrophysical study of stars. Successful models were developed to explain the interiors of stars and stellar evolution. The spectra of stars were also successfully explained through advances in quantum physics. This allowed the chemical composition of the stellar atmosphere to be determined. With the exception of supernovae, individual stars have primarily been observed in our Local Group of galaxies, and especially in the visible part of the Milky Way (as demonstrated by the detailed star catalogues available for our galaxy). But some stars have been observed in the M100 galaxy of the Virgo Cluster, about 100 million light years from the Earth. In the Local Supercluster it is possible to see star clusters, and current telescopes could in principle observe faint individual stars in the Local Clusterthe most distant stars resolved have up to hundred million light years away (see Cepheids). However, outside the Local Supercluster of galaxies, neither individual stars nor clusters of stars have been observed. The only exception is a faint image of a large star cluster containing hundreds of thousands of stars located one billion light years awayten times the distance of the most distant star cluster previously observed.
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5.1
Characteristics
Almost everything about a star is determined by its initial mass, including essential characteristics such as luminosity and size, as well as the star's evolution, lifespan, and eventual fate. Age of most stars is between 1 billion and 10 billion years old. Some stars may even be close to 13.7 billion years oldthe observed age of the universe. The oldest star yet discovered, HE 1523-0901, is an estimated 13.2 billion years old. The more massive the star, the shorter its lifespan, primarily because massive stars have greater pressure on their cores, causing them to burn hydrogen more rapidly. The most massive stars last an average of about one million years, while stars of minimum mass (red dwarfs) burn their fuel very slowly and last tens to hundreds of billions of years.
Figure 5.2 The Sun is the nearest star to Earth Thus we can say that a star is a massive, luminous ball of plasma that is held together by gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth. Other stars are visible in the night sky, when they are not outshone by the Sun. Historically, the most prominent stars on the celestial sphere were grouped together into constellations, and the brightest stars gained proper names. Extensive catalogues of stars have been assembled by astronomers, which provide standardized designations. For most of its life, a star shines due to thermonuclear fusion in its core releasing energy that traverses the star's interior and then radiates into outer space. Almost all elements heavier than hydrogen and helium were created by fusion processes in stars. Astronomers can determine the mass, age, chemical composition and many other
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properties of a star by observing its spectrum, luminosity and motion through space. The total mass of a star is the principal determinant in its evolution and eventual fate. Other characteristics of a star are determined by its evolutionary history, including the diameter, rotation, movement and temperature. A plot of the temperature of many stars against their luminosities, known as a HertzsprungRussell diagram (HR diagram), allows the age and evolutionary state of a star to be determined. A star begins as a collapsing cloud of material composed primarily of hydrogen, along with helium and trace amounts of heavier elements. Once the stellar core is sufficiently dense, some of the hydrogen is steadily converted into helium through the process of nuclear fusion. The remainder of the star's interior carries energy away from the core through a combination of radiative and convective processes. The star's internal pressure prevents it from collapsing further under its own gravity. Once the hydrogen fuel at the core is exhausted, those stars having at least 0.4 times the mass of the Sun expand to become a red giant, in some cases fusing heavier elements at the core or in shells around the core. The star then evolves into a degenerate form, recycling a portion of the matter into the interstellar environment, where it will form a new generation of stars with a higher proportion of heavy elements Binary and multi-star systems consist of two or more stars that are gravitationally bound, and generally move around each other in stable orbits. When two such stars have a relatively close orbit, their gravitational interaction can have a significant impact on their evolution. Stars can form part of a much larger gravitationally bound structure, such as a cluster or a galaxy. 5.2 Star designations Astronomical naming conventions, and Star catalogue The concept of the constellation was known to exist during the Babylonian period. Ancient sky watchers imagined that prominent arrangements of stars formed patterns, and they associated these with particular aspects of nature or their myths. Twelve of these formations lay along the band of the ecliptic and these became the basis of astrology. Many of the more prominent individual stars were also given names, particularly with Arabic or Latin designations. As well as certain constellations and the Sun itself, stars as a whole have their own myths. To the Ancient Greeks, some "stars," known
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as planets (Greek (plants), meaning "wanderer"), represented various important deities, from which the names of the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were taken. (Uranus and Neptune were also Greek and Roman gods, but neither planet was known in Antiquity because of their low brightness. Their names were assigned by later astronomers). Circa 1600, the names of the constellations were used to name the stars in the corresponding regions of the sky. The German astronomer Johann Bayer created a series of star maps and applied Greek letters as designations to the stars in each constellation. Later a numbering system based on the star's right ascension was invented and added to John Flamsteed's star catalogue in his book "Historia coelestis Britannica" (the 1712 edition), whereby this numbering system came to be called Flamsteed designation or Flamsteed numbering. The only body which has been recognized by the scientific community as having the authority to name stars or other celestial bodies is the International Astronomical Union (IAU). A number of private companies (for instance, the "International Star Registry") purport to sell names to stars; however, these names are neither recognized by the scientific community nor used by them, and many in the astronomy community view these organizations as frauds preying on people ignorant of star naming procedure. 5.3 Units of measurement
Most stellar parameters are expressed in SI units by convention, but CGS units are also used (e.g., expressing luminosity in ergs per second). Mass, luminosity, and radii are usually given in solar units, based on the characteristics of the Sun: solar mass: solar luminosity: solar radius: ts m kg wat
Large lengths, such as the radius of a giant star or the semi-major axis of a binary star system, are often expressed in terms of the
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astronomical unit (AU)approximately the mean distance between the Earth and the Sun (150 million km or 93 million miles). 5.4 Stellar Magnetic field
The magnetic field of a star is generated within regions of the interior where convective circulation occurs. This movement of conductive plasma functions like a dynamo, generating magnetic fields that extend throughout the star. The strength of the magnetic field varies with the mass and composition of the star, and the amount of magnetic surface activity depends upon the star's rate of rotation. This surface activity produces starspots, which are regions of strong magnetic fields and lower than normal surface temperatures. Coronal loops are arching magnetic fields that reach out into the corona from active regions. Stellar flares are bursts of high-energy particles that are emitted due to the same magnetic activity. Young, rapidly rotating stars tend to have high levels of surface activity because of their magnetic field. The magnetic field can act upon a star's stellar wind;
Figure 5.3 Surface magnetic field of SU Aur (a young star of T Tauri type), reconstructed by means of Zeeman-Doppler imaging However, functioning as a brake to gradually slow the rate of rotation as the star grows older. Thus, older stars such as the Sun have a much slower rate of rotation and a lower level of surface activity. The activity levels of slowly rotating stars tend to vary in a cyclical manner and can shut down altogether for periods. During the Maunder
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minimum, for example, the Sun underwent a 70-year period with almost no sunspot activity. 5.5 Stellar Mass
One of the most massive stars known is Eta Carinae, with 100 150 times as much mass as the Sun; its lifespan is very shortonly several million years at most. A recent study of the Arches cluster suggests that 150 solar masses is the upper limit for stars in the current era of the universe. The reason for this limit is not precisely known, but it is partially due to the Eddington luminosity which defines the maximum amount of luminosity that can pass through the atmosphere of a star without ejecting the gases into space.
Figure 5.4 The reflection nebula NGC 1999 is brilliantly illuminated by V380 Orionis (center), a variable star with about 3.5 times the mass of the Sun. NASA image The first stars to form after the Big Bang may have been larger, up to 300 solar masses or more, due to the complete absence of elements heavier than lithium in their composition. This generation of supermassive, population III stars is long extinct, however, and currently only theoretical. With a mass only 93 times that of Jupiter, AB Doradus C, a companion to AB Doradus A, is the smallest known star undergoing nuclear fusion in its core. For stars with similar metallicity to the Sun, the theoretical minimum mass the star can have, and still undergo fusion at the core, is estimated to be about 75 times the mass of Jupiter. When the metallicity is very low, however, a recent study of the faintest stars found that the minimum star size seems to be about 8.3% of the solar mass, or about 87 times the mass of Jupiter. Smaller bodies are called brown dwarfs, which
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occupy a poorly defined grey area between stars and gas giants. The combination of the radius and the mass of a star determines the surface gravity. Giant stars have a much lower surface gravity than main sequence stars, while the opposite is the case for degenerate, compact stars such as white dwarfs. The surface gravity can influence the appearance of a star's spectrum, with higher gravity causing a broadening of the absorption lines. 5.6 Stellar rotation
The rotation rate of stars can be approximated through spectroscopic measurement, or more exactly determined by tracking the rotation rate of starspots. Young stars can have a rapid rate of rotation greater than 100 km/s at the equator. The B-class star Achernar, for example, has an equatorial rotation velocity of about 225 km/s or greater, giving it an equatorial diameter that is more than 50% larger than the distance between the poles. This rate of rotation is just below the critical velocity of 300 km/s where the star would break apart. By contrast, the Sun only rotates once every 25 35 days, with an equatorial velocity of 1.994 km/s. The star's magnetic field and the stellar wind serve to slow down a main sequence star's rate of rotation by a significant amount as it evolves on the main sequence. Degenerate stars have contracted into a compact mass, resulting in a rapid rate of rotation. However they have relatively low rates of rotation compared to what would be expected by conservation of angular momentumthe tendency of a rotating body to compensate for a contraction in size by increasing its rate of spin. A large portion of the star's angular momentum is dissipated as a result of mass loss through the stellar wind. In spite of this, the rate of rotation for a pulsar can be very rapid. The pulsar at the heart of the Crab nebula, for example, rotates 30 times per second. The rotation rate of the pulsar will gradually slow due to the emission of radiation. 5.7 Temperature
The surface temperature of a main sequence star is determined by the rate of energy production at the core and the radius of the star and is often estimated from the star's color index. It is normally given as the effective temperature, which is the temperature of an idealized black body that radiates its energy at the same luminosity per surface
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area as the star. Note that the effective temperature is only a representative value, however, as stars actually have a temperature gradient that decreases with increasing distance from the core. The temperature in the core region of a star is several million Kelvin. The stellar temperature will determine the rate of energization or ionization of different elements, resulting in characteristic absorption lines in the spectrum. The surface temperature of a star, along with its visual absolute magnitude and absorption features, is used to classify a star (see Table 5.1). Massive main sequence stars can have surface temperatures of 50,000 K. Smaller stars such as the Sun have surface temperatures of a few thousand K. Red giants have relatively low surface temperatures of about 3,600 K, but they also have a high luminosity due to their large exterior surface area. 5.8 Radiation
The energy produced by stars, as a by-product of nuclear fusion, radiates into space as both electromagnetic radiation and particle radiation. The particle radiation emitted by a star is manifested as the stellar wind (which exists as a steady stream of electrically charged particles, such as free protons, alpha particles, and beta particles, emanating from the stars outer layers) and as a steady stream of neutrinos emanating from the stars core. The production of energy at the core is the reason why stars shine so brightly: every time two or more atomic nuclei of one element fuse together to form an atomic nucleus of a new heavier element, gamma ray photons are released from the nuclear fusion reaction. This energy is converted to other forms of electromagnetic energy, including visible light, by the time it reaches the stars outer layers. The color of a star, as determined by the peak frequency of the visible light, depends on the temperature of the stars outer layers, including its photosphere. Besides visible light, stars also emit forms of electromagnetic radiation that are invisible to the human eye. In fact, stellar electromagnetic radiation spans the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from the longest wavelengths of radio waves and infrared to the shortest wavelengths of ultraviolet, Xrays, and gamma rays. All components of stellar electromagnetic radiation, both visible and invisible, are typically significant. Using the stellar spectrum, astronomers can also determine the surface temperature, surface gravity, metallicity and rotational velocity of a star. If the distance of the star is known, such as by measuring the
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parallax, then the luminosity of the star can be derived. The mass, radius, surface gravity, and rotation period can then be estimated based on stellar models. (Mass can be measured directly for stars in binary systems. The technique of gravitational microlensing will also yield the mass of a star. With these parameters, astronomers can also estimate the age of the star. 5.9 Luminosity
In astronomy, luminosity is the amount of light, and other forms of radiant energy, a star radiates per unit of time. The luminosity of a star is determined by the radius and the surface temperature. However, many stars do not radiate a uniform fluxthe amount of energy radiated per unit areaacross their entire surface. The rapidly rotating star Vega, for example, has a higher energy flux at its poles than along its equator. Surface patches with a lower temperature and luminosity than average are known as starspots. Small, dwarf stars such as the Sun generally have essentially featureless disks with only small starspots. Larger, giant stars have much bigger, much more obvious starspots, and they also exhibit strong stellar limb darkening. That is, the brightness decreases towards the edge of the stellar disk. Red dwarf flare stars such as UV Ceti may also possess prominent starspot features. 5.10 Stellar Spectra: A Classification When the spectra of different stars were observed, it was found that they differ greatly among themselves. In 1863 the Jesuit astronomer Angelo Secchi categorized stars into four groups according to general arrangement of the dark lines in their spectra. Srcchis scheme was subsequently modified and augmented, till date we recognize seven such principal spectral classes. 5.11 Spectral Sequence As we know, each dark line in a stellar spectrum is due to the presence of a particular chemical element in the atmosphere of the star observed, it might seem, therefore, that the stellar spectra differ from each other because of difference in the chemical make up of the star. Actually, the difference in the stellar spectra is due mostly to the
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widely differing temperatures in the outer layers of the various stars. Hydrogen, for example is by far most abundant element in all stars, except probably in those at the advanced stage of evolution. In the atmosphere of very hottest stars, hydrogen is completely ionized and can therefore produce no absorption lines. In the atmosphere of the coolest star hydrogen is neutral and can produce absorption lines, but in these stars practically all of the hydrogen atoms are in lowest energy state, and can absorb only those photons that can lift them from first energy level to the higher ones; the photons so absorbed produce the Layman series of absorption lines, which lies in the unobservable ultraviolet part of the spectrum. In the stellar atmosphere with a temperature of about 10,000 K, many hydrogen atoms are not ionized and appreciable number of these are excited to second energy level, from which they can absorb additional photons and rise to higher level of excitation. These photons correspond to the wavelength of Balmer series which is in the part of spectrum that is readily observable. Absorption lines due to hydrogen. Therefore are strongest in the spectra of the stars whose atmosphere have temperatures near 10,000 K and they are less conspicuous in the spectra of both hotter and cooler stars, even though the hydrogen is roughly equally abundant in all the stars. Similarly, every other chemical element in each of its possible stage of ionization has a characteristic temperature at which it is most effective in producing the absorption lines in the observable part of the spectrum. Once it is ascertained how the temperature of stars can determine the physical states of the gases in its outer layers, and thus their ability to produce absorption lines. We need only to observe what patterns of absorption lines are present in the spectrum of a star to learn its temperature. We can therefore arrange the seven classes of the stellar spectra in continuous sequence in order of decreasing temperature. In the hottest stars with the temperature over 25000 K only lines of ionized helium and highly ionized atoms of other elements are conspicuous. Hydrogen lines are shortest in stars with atmospheric temperature of about 10,000 K. Ionized metals provide the most conspicuous lines in the stars with temperatures from 6000 to 8000 K. Lines of neutral metals are strongest in somewhat cooler stars. In the coolest stars ( below 4000 K) bands of some molecules are very strong, The most important among the molecules bands are those due to titanium oxide, a tenacious chemical compound which
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can exist at a temperature of cooler stars. The sequence of spectral types is summarized in Table 5.1 Hot star types O,B,A are sometimes referred to as having early spectral types, The spectral classes of the stars G,K,M- as late spectral types. The spectral classes of stars listed in the table can be subdivided into tenths, thus a star of spectral class A5 is midway in the range of A- type stars that is halfway between the stars of type A0 and F0. The sun is of spectral class G2- two tenth of the way from class G0 to K0. The spectral sequence ranging smoothly from O to M with decreasing temperature was established through the classification of hundreds of thousands of stellar spectra in years 1918 to 1924 by astronomers at Harvard University; pioneered by Edward Pickering and a woman astronomer with the unlikely name of Annie Cannon, among others. Famous American astronomer Henry Norris Russel proposed a scheme by which every student can remember the order of classes in the spectral sequence. The class letters are the first letters of the words Oh, Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me!
Spectral Class O Color Blue Approximate Temperature (K) 25,000 Principal Features Relatively few absorption lines in observable spectrum. Lines of ionized helium, doubly ionized nitrogen, triply ionized silicon, and other lines of highly ionized atoms. Hydrogen lines appears only weekly Lines of neutral helium, singly and doubly ionized silicon, singly ionized oxygen and magnesium. Hydrogen lines more pronounced than the O type stars Strong lines of hydrogen. Also lines of singly ionized magnesium, silicon, iron, titanium, calcium and others. Lines of some neutral metals show weakly Hydrogen lines are weaker than in A-type stars but are still conspicuous. Lines of singly ionized calcium. Iron and chromium and also lines of neutral iron and chromium are present, as are lines of other neutral metals Lines of ionized calcium are most conspicuous spectral features. Many lines of ionized and neutral metals are present. Hydrogen lines are weak even than in F-type stars. Bands of CH, the hydrocarbon radicals, are strong Lines of neutral metal predominate. The CH bands are still present. Strong lines of neutral metals and molecular bands of titanium oxide dominate Stellar Examples 10 Lacertae Zeta Ophiuchi Rigel Spica Sirius Vega Altair Canopus Procyon Sun Capella
B A F
5000-6000
K M
3500-5000 3500
Table 5.1 Classification of stars according to their spectra Originally there were a number of spectral classes from A-Q, designating stars according to the complexity of their emission lines.
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That classification was dropped in favor of the simplified version we see today, which orders stars according to their color/temperature, but maintains the letter names from the old classification. Recent decades have seen the introduction of a few new spectral classes, to cover interstellar oddballs are shown in Table 5.2 W C S Wolf-Rayet Stars(Blue) Carbon stars (Red) Brown Dwarfs
Table 5.2 The major luminosity classes Stars in the Harvard system are further classified according to their luminosity, a measurement based on the brightness of the star, which gives us some idea of its mass. Stars may also be classified by the luminosity effects found in their spectral lines, which correspond to their spatial size and is determined by the surface gravity. As shown in Table 5.3. These range from 0 (hypergiants) through III (giants) to V (main sequence dwarfs); some authors add VII (white dwarfs). Most stars belong to the main sequence, which consists of ordinary hydrogen-burning stars. These fall along a narrow, diagonal band when graphed according to their absolute magnitude and spectral type. Our Sun is a main sequence G2V yellow dwarf, being of intermediate temperature and ordinary size. Additional nomenclature, in the form of lower-case letters, can follow the spectral type to indicate peculiar features of the spectrum. For example, an "e" can indicate the presence of emission lines; "m" represents unusually strong levels of metals, and "var" can mean variations in the spectral type. White dwarf stars have their own class that begins with the letter D. This is further sub-divided into the classes DA, DB, DC, DO, DZ, and DQ, depending on the types of prominent lines found in the spectrum. This is followed by a numerical value that indicates the temperature index. This is known as the Yerkes spectral classification. Two stars may have the same surface temperature (color) but different luminosity (size), according to their age, mass and composition. I II III Supergiant (a/b) Luminous Giant Giant
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IV Subgiant V Main Sequence (Dwarf) VI | Subdwarf VII White Dwarf Table 5.3 The major luminosity classes 5.12 Magnitude of Stars (Apparent and Absolute magnitude): The apparent brightness of a star is measured by its apparent magnitude, which is the brightness of a star with respect to the stars luminosity, distance from Earth, and the altering of the stars light as it passes through Earths atmosphere. Intrinsic or absolute magnitude is what the apparent magnitude a star would be if the distance between the Earth and the star were 10 parsecs (32.6 light-years), and it is directly related to a stars luminosity.
Number of stars brighter than magnitude Apparent magnitude 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Number of Stars 4 15 48 171 513 1,602 4,800 14,000
Table 5.4 The Luminosity of stars. Both the apparent and absolute magnitude scales are logarithmic units: one whole number difference in magnitude is equal to a brightness variation of about 2.5 times (the 5th root of 100 or approximately 2.512). This means that a first magnitude (+1.00) star
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is about 2.5 times brighter than a second magnitude (+2.00) star, and approximately 100 times brighter than a sixth magnitude (+6.00) star. The faintest stars visible to the naked eye under good seeing conditions are about magnitude +6. On apparent and absolute magnitude scales, the smaller the magnitude number, the brighter the star; the larger the magnitude number, the fainter. The brightest stars, on either scale, have negative magnitude numbers. The variation in brightness (L) between two stars is calculated by subtracting the magnitude number of the brighter star (mb) from the magnitude number of the fainter star (mf), then using the difference as an exponent for the base number 2.512; that is to say: m = mf mb 2.512m = L Relative to both luminosity and distance from Earth, absolute magnitude (M) and apparent magnitude (m) are not equivalent for an individual star; for example, the bright star Sirius has an apparent magnitude of 1.44, but it has an absolute magnitude of +1.41. The Sun has an apparent magnitude of 26.7, but its absolute magnitude is only +4.83. Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky as seen from Earth, is approximately 23 times more luminous than the Sun, while Canopus, the second brightest star in the night sky with an absolute magnitude of 5.53, is approximately 14,000 times more luminous than the Sun. Despite Canopus being vastly more luminous than Sirius, however, Sirius appears brighter than Canopus. This is because Sirius is merely 8.6 light-years from the Earth, while Canopus is much farther away at a distance of 310 light-years. As of 2006, the star with the highest known absolute magnitude is LBV 1806-20, with a magnitude of 14.2. This star is at least 5,000,000 times more luminous than the Sun. The least luminous stars that are currently known are located in the NGC 6397 cluster. The faintest red dwarfs in the cluster were magnitude 26, while a 28th magnitude white dwarf was also discovered. These faint stars are so dim that their light is as bright as a birthday candle on the Moon when viewed from the Earth.
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5.13 Stellar Diameter Due to their great distance from the Earth, all stars except the Sun appear to the human eye as shining points in the night sky that twinkle because of the effect of the Earth's atmosphere. The Sun is also a star, but it is close enough to the Earth to appear as a disk instead, and to provide daylight. Other than the Sun, the star with the largest apparent size is R Doradus, with an angular diameter of only 0.057 arcseconds. The disks of most stars are much too small in angular size to be observed with current ground-based optical telescopes, and so interferometer telescopes are required in order to produce images of these objects. Another technique for measuring the angular size of stars is through occultation. By precisely measuring the drop in brightness of a star as it is occulted by the Moon (or the rise in brightness when it reappears), the star's angular diameter can be computed.
Figure 5.5 Stars vary widely in size Stars range in size from neutron stars, which vary anywhere from 20 to 40 km in diameter, to supergiants like Betelgeuse in the Orion
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constellation, which has a diameter approximately 650 times larger than the Sunabout 0.9 billion kilometers. However, Betelgeuse has a much lower density than the Sun.
for very massive O and B class stars, where 80% of the systems are believed to be multiple. However the portion of single star systems increases for smaller stars, so that only 25% of red dwarfs are known to have stellar companions. As 85% of all stars are red dwarfs, most stars in the Milky Way are likely single from birth. Stars are not spread uniformly across the universe, but are normally grouped into galaxies along with interstellar gas and dust. A typical galaxy contains hundreds of billions of stars, and there are more than 100 billion (1011) galaxies in the observable universe. While it is often believed that stars only exist within galaxies, intergalactic stars have been discovered. Astronomers estimate that there are at least 70 sextillion (71022) stars in the observable universe. The nearest star to the Earth, apart from the Sun, is Proxima Centauri, which is 39.9 trillion (1012) kilometers, or 4.2 light-years away. Light from Proxima Centauri takes 4.2 years to reach Earth. Traveling at the orbital speed of the Space Shuttle (5 miles per secondalmost 30,000 kilometers per hour), it would take about 150,000 years to get there. Distances like this are typical inside galactic discs, including in the vicinity of the solar system. Stars can be much closer to each other in the centers of galaxies and in globular clusters, or much farther apart in galactic halos. Due to the relatively vast distances between stars outside the galactic nucleus, collisions between stars are thought to be rare. In denser regions such as the core of globular clusters or the galactic center, collisions can be more common. Such collisions can produce what are known as blue stragglers. These abnormal stars have a higher surface temperature than the other main sequence stars with the same luminosity in the cluster. 5.16 Stellar Structure The circumstances that greatly facilitate the computation of the conditions in the interior of the stars is that, stars in most cases are completely gaseous throughout. Not only are the temperatures too high to permit the molecules to exist in the stellar interiors but even the atoms almost completely ionized. Consequently, overwhelming majority of particles of which the stars are made are the free
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electrons and atomic nuclei, and most of the later are simple protons. We know that these particles are extremely small as compared to the size of the neutral atoms. Thus even in stars where the gases are compressed to enormous densities, there is mostly empty space between the electrons and atomic nuclei. It is for this reason idealized gas law holds throughout the interior of most of the stars with high degree of accuracy.
(i)
Perfect Gas Law: The particles that comprise a gas are in rapid motion, frequently colliding with each other and with the walls of the container of the gas. This constant bombardment is the pressure of the gas. The pressure is greater, the greater the number of particles within a given volume of gas, for the course the combined impact of moving particles increases with the numbers. The pressure is also greater the faster the molecules or atoms are moving; since the rate of motion determined by the temperature of the gas, the pressure is greater the higher the temperature. The perfect gas laws provide the mathematical relation between the pressure density and temperature of a perfect or ideal gas and states that the pressure is proportional to the product of the density and the temperature of the gas. The gases in most stars closely approximate an ideal gas; thus, they must obey this law. The exceptions are very massive stars, where the radiation pressure can play an important role, and collapse core of the stars where the matter is degenerated. Hydrostatic Equilibrium: The sun like majority of other stars is stable that is, neither expanding nor contracting. Such a star is said to be in a condition of equilibrium, all the force within it are balanced so that each point within the star the temperature, pressure and density and so on are maintained at the constant values. However, even these stable stars including the sun, are changing as they evolve, such evolutionary changes are so gradual
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(ii)
that to all intends and purpose the stars are still in state of equilibrium. The mutual gravitational attraction between the masses of various regions within a star produces tremendous forces that tend to collapse the star toward its center. Yet, since the star like the sun have remained more or less unchanged for millions of years, the gravitational force that tends to collapse the star must be exactly balanced by a pressure from within. Most of it is the pressure of the gases themselves, although in some very luminous stars the pressure of radiation also contributes appreciably. If the internal pressure in the star is not great enough to balance the weight of outer parts the star would collapse somewhat, contracting and building up pressure inside. If the pressure were greater than the weight of overlying layers the star would expand, thus decreasing the internal pressure, expansion would stop and the equilibrium would be reached when the pressure at every internal point again equaled the weight of the stellar layers above that point. An analogy is the inflated balloon, which will expand or contract until an equilibrium is reached between the excess pressure of the air and tension of the rubber. This condition is called hydrostatic equilibrium; so are the oceans of the earth; as well as the earths atmosphere. The pressure of air keeps the air from falling to the ground. (iii) Minimum Pressure and Temperature in Stellar Interior We can regard star as being composed of large number of concentric spherical shells (like the layers of onion). The star is not actually satisfied, of course; we speak of these shells in the same sense that we speak of levels in the ocean. Now if we know how the matter is distributes within the star, that is, what fraction of its
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mass is included within each shell. Since the weight of the shell is the gravitational attraction between it and all the underlying layers, we could then calculate weight of each shell. From the condition of hydrostatic equilibrium, we could next calculate how the pressure must increase downward through each shell to support its weight. At the surface of the star, where there are no overlying layers of stellar matter, the pressure is zero. By simply adding up the increases of pressure through successive layers inward, we would be able to find the pressure at each point within the star, in particular at its center. Using pressure and the densities thus determined at all points along the radius of the star, we could then find the corresponding temperatures from the perfect gas law. In other words if we only know how the material within the star is distributed, we would be able to calculate the density, pressure and temperature at all its internal points. It is not known in advance, how the matter in a particular star is distributed. On the other hand some ways that it is not distributed can be specified. Internal gravity must force the gases comprising the star into higher and higher compression at deeper and deeper levels of its interior. The material is expected to show high central concentrations the density of outer layers would certainly not exceed those of inner layers. To assume that the matter in the star is distributed with uniform density, would certainly be to underestimate its central compression, and the values calculated for its internal pressures and temperatures. Here, then, is a method by which lower limits can be found for pressure and temperature in the stellar interior. With only the assumption of hydrostatic equilibrium and knowledge of perfect gas law it is possible to learn something of conditions in star. We find that the mean pressure in the sun is at least 500 million times the sea-level pressure of earths atmosphere; the central pressure is at least 1.3 x 109 times that of earths atmosphere, and that the mean temperature is at least 2.3 million Kelvin. Since these pressures and temperatures would exist if
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the sun were uniform in density. The actual values must be much higher, under such conditions all elements are in the gaseous form, and the atoms cannot be combined into molecules. Moreover, most of the atoms are completely ionized, electrons thus freed, from the parent atom become part of gas itself moving about as independent particles. (iv) Thermal Equilibrium The observation of stars reveals that electromagnetic energy flow from the surface of the stars. Thus, second law of thermodynamics, heat always tries to flow from hotter to cooler region. Therefore, the energy always filters outwards toward the surface of the star; it must be flowing from inner hotter region. The temperature cannot decrease inward in the star, or energy would flow in and heat up those regions until they were at least as hot as outer ones. Thus we conclude that the highest temperature occurs at the center of the star and that the temperature drops to successively lower values towards the stellar surface. The outward flow of energy though robs of its internal heat and would result in cooling of interior gases where the energy is not replaced. There must therefore be a source of energy within each star. If the star is in the hydrostatic equilibrium and shining with steady luminosity the temperature and pressure at each point within it must remain approximately constant. If the temperature were to change suddenly at some point, the pressure would similarly change, causing the star to contract suddenly or to expand or otherwise to deviate from the hydrostatic equilibrium. Energy must be supplied therefore, to each layer in the star at just a right rate to balance the loss of heat in that layer as it passes energy outward toward surface. Moreover, the rate at which the energy is supplied to the star as a whole, must at least on the average, exactly balance the rate at which the whole star loses
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its energy by radiating it into space; that is, rate of energy production in a star is equal to its luminosity. We call this balance of heat for the star as a whole and at each point within it the condition of thermal equilibrium. (v) Heat Transfer in a Star There are three ways in which teat can be transported; by conduction, by convection and by radiation. The rate at which heat passes through gases by conduction, however, is so low that this mode of transfer can be ignored in stellar interiors, unless the gas is degenerated. The stellar convection occurs as current of gas flow in and out through the star. While these convection currents travel at moderate speed and do not upset the condition of hydrostatic equilibrium, they nevertheless carry heat outward through the star very effectively. The convection current cannot be maintained unless the temperature of successive deeper layers in the star increases rapidly in relation to the rate at which the pressure increases inward. Convection occurs in certain parts of many stars and the convection current may travel completely through some of the least luminous stars. Unless convection occurs, the only mode of transport of energy through the star is electromagnetic radiation, which gradually filters outward as it is passed from atom to atom. However, the radiative transfer is not an efficient means of energy transport, because under the condition that prevails in the stellar interiors gases are very opaque- that is, a photon do not go far before it is absorbed by an atom(typically in the sun about 1 cm). The energy absorbed by atoms is always reemitted in random directions. A photon that is traveling outward in a star when it is absorbed has almost as good a chance of being radiated back towards the center of the star as towards its surface. A particular quantity of the energy being passed from atom to atom, therefore
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zigzagging around in an almost random manner and take a long time to work its way from the center of the star to its surface, in the sun the time required is of the order of million years. The measuring the ability of gas to absorb radiation is called its opacity. It should be no surprise that the gases in the sun are opaque. If they were completely transparent then we could see all the way through the sun. The process by which atoms and ions can interrupt the flow of energy - such as by becoming ionized and by bremmstrahlung (free- free transactions). In addition the individual electron can scatter radiation helter-skelter. For a given temperature, density and the compression of a gas, all of these processes can be taken into account, and the opacity can be calculated. Once the opacity is known, we can fins how each layer of shell or the sun or a star impedes the outward flow of radiation. Of course there is such a net outward flow, or the star would have no luminosity. Thus from opacity we calculate how the temperature must increase inward through the shell to force the observed radiation out and thereby learn the temperature distribution throughout the interior. If the temperature difference across some regions of a star should be high enough to support convection, convection currents, rather than radiation carry most of the energy within those regions the variation of temperature are with depth is determined by expansion of outward moving masses of gases and contraction of overlying ones. Here again the knowledge of the energy transport mechanism within a star makes possible calculation of temperature distribution Thus we can summarize that the interior of a stable star is in a state of hydrostatic equilibrium: the forces on any small volume almost exactly counterbalance each other. The balanced forces are inward gravitational force and an outward force due to the pressure gradient within the star. The pressure gradient is established by the temperature gradient of the plasma; the outer part of the star is cooler
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than the core. The temperature at the core of a main sequence or giant star is at least on the order of 107 K. The resulting temperature and pressure at the hydrogen-burning core of a main sequence star are sufficient for nuclear fusion to occur and for sufficient energy to be produced to prevent further collapse of the star. As atomic nuclei are fused in the core, they emit energy in the form of gamma rays. These photons interact with the surrounding plasma, adding to the thermal energy at the core. Stars on the main sequence convert hydrogen into helium, creating a slowly but steadily increasing proportion of helium in the core. Eventually the helium content becomes predominant and energy production ceases at the core. Instead, for stars of more than 0.4 solar masses, fusion occurs in a slowly expanding shell around the degenerate helium core. In addition to hydrostatic equilibrium, the interior of a stable star will also maintain an energy balance of thermal equilibrium. There is a radial temperature gradient throughout the interior that results in a flux of energy flowing toward the exterior. The outgoing flux of energy leaving any layer within the star will exactly match the incoming flux from below. The radiation zone is the region within the stellar interior where radiative transfer is sufficiently efficient to maintain the flux of energy. In this region the plasma will not be perturbed and any mass motions will die out. If this is not the case, however, then the plasma becomes unstable and convection will occur, forming a convection zone. This can occur, for example, in regions where very high energy fluxes occur, such as near the core or in areas with high opacity as in the outer envelope. The occurrence of convection in the outer envelope of a main sequence star depends on the mass. Stars with several times the mass of the Sun have a convection zone deep within the interior and a radiative zone in the outer layers. Smaller stars such as the Sun are just the opposite, with the convective zone located in the outer layers. Red dwarf stars with less than 0.4 solar masses are convective throughout, which prevents the accumulation of a helium core. For most stars the convective zones will also vary over time as the star ages and the constitution of the interior is modified. The portion of a star that is visible to an observer is called the photosphere. This is the layer at which the plasma of the star becomes transparent to photons of light. From here, the energy generated at the core becomes free to propagate out into space. It is
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within the photosphere that sun spots, or regions of lower than average temperature, appear. Above the level of the photosphere is the stellar atmosphere. In a main sequence star such as the Sun, the lowest level of the atmosphere is the thin chromosphere region, where spicules appear and stellar flares begin. This is surrounded by a transition region, where the temperature rapidly increases within a distance of only 100 km. beyond this is the corona, a volume of super-heated plasma that can extend outward to several million kilometers. The existence of a corona appears to be dependent on a convective zone in the outer layers of the star. Despite its high temperature, the corona emits very little light. The corona region of the Sun is normally only visible during a solar eclipse. From the corona, a stellar wind of plasma particles expands outward from the star, propagating until it interacts with the interstellar medium. For the Sun, the influence of its solar wind extends throughout the bubble-shaped region of the heliosphere
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Summery
1. The total mass of a star is the principal determinant in its
evolution and eventual fate. 2. Ancient sky watchers imagined that prominent arrangements of stars formed patterns (constellations), and they associated these with particular aspects of nature or their myths. 3. Most stellar parameters are expressed in SI units by convention, but CGS units are also used (e.g., expressing luminosity in ergs per second). Mass, luminosity, and radii are usually given in solar units, based on the characteristics of the Sun 4. The magnetic field of a star is generated within regions of the interior where convective circulation occurs. The strength of the magnetic field varies with the mass and composition of the star, and the amount of magnetic surface activity depends upon the star's rate of rotation. 5. One of the most massive stars known is Eta Carinae, with 100 150 times as much mass as the Sun; A recent study of the Arches cluster suggests that 150 solar masses is the upper limit for stars in the current era of the universe. 6. Young stars can have a rapid rate of rotation greater than 100 km/s at the equator. 7. Degenerate stars have contracted into a compact mass, resulting in a rapid rate of rotation. 8. The surface temperature of a main sequence star is determined by the rate of energy production at the core and the radius of the star and is often estimated from the star's color index. 9. The energy produced by stars, as a by-product of nuclear fusion, radiates into space as both electromagnetic radiation and particle radiation. 10. The color of a star, as determined by the peak frequency of the visible light, depends on the temperature of the stars outer layers, including its photosphere. 11. In astronomy, luminosity is the amount of light, and other forms of radiant energy, a star radiates per unit of time.
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12. The stellar spectra differ from each other because of difference
in the chemical make up of the star. Actually, the difference in the stellar spectra is due mostly to the widely differing temperatures in the outer layers of the various stars. 13. Stars in the Harvard system are further classified according to their luminosity, a measurement based on the brightness of the star, which gives us some idea of its mass. 14. The apparent brightness of a star is measured by its apparent magnitude, which is the brightness of a star with respect to the stars luminosity, distance from Earth, and the altering of the stars light as it passes through Earths atmosphere. 15. Due to their great distance from the Earth, all stars except the Sun appear to the human eye as shining points in the night sky that twinkle because of the effect of the Earth's atmosphere. 16. Stars range in size from neutron stars, which vary anywhere from 20 to 40 km in diameter, to supergiants like Betelgeuse in the Orion constellation, which has a diameter approximately 650 times larger than the Sunabout 0.9 billion kilometers. 17. The motion of a star relative to the Sun can provide useful information about the origin and age of a star, as well as the structure and evolution of the surrounding galaxy. 18. In addition to isolated stars, there are multi-star system can consisting of two or more gravitationally bound stars that orbit around each other. 19. Stars are not spread uniformly across the universe, but are normally grouped into galaxies along with interstellar gas and dust. A typical galaxy contains hundreds of billions of stars, and there are more than 100 billion (1011) galaxies in the observable universe. 20. Overwhelming majority of particles of which the stars are made are the free electrons and atomic nuclei, and most of the later are simple protons. 21. The perfect gas laws provide the mathematical relation between the pressure density and temperature of a perfect or
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ideal gas and states that the pressure is proportional to the product of the density and the temperature of the gas. 22. There are three ways in which teat can be transported; by conduction, by convection and by radiation. 23. The interior of a stable star is in a state of hydrostatic equilibrium: the forces on any small volume almost exactly counterbalance each other. The balanced forces are inward gravitational force and an outward force due to the pressure gradient within the star. The pressure gradient is established by the temperature gradient of the plasma
Exercises
Fill in the blanks 1. Greek astronomer Aristillus created ___________ catalogue in approximately 300 BC. 2. Hipparchus is known for the discovery of the first ________. 3. ___________ measurements demonstrated the vast separation of the stars in the heavens. 4. The oldest star yet discovered, HE 1523-0901, is an estimated ________ billion years old. 5. Mass, luminosity, and radii are usually given in ________ units. 6. Movement of conductive plasma functions like a dynamo, generating __________ fields that extend throughout the star. 7. Massive main sequence stars can have surface temperatures of _____________K. 8. Using the stellar spectrum, astronomers can also determine the _____________ temperature, surface gravity, metallicity and rotational velocity of a star. 9. Stars in the Harvard system are further classified according to their __________, a measurement based on the brightness of the star. 10. Stars with high rates of proper motion are likely to be relatively close to the _______, making them good candidates for parallax measurements. 11. It has been a long-held assumption that the majority of stars occur in gravitationally bound, __________star systems. 12. The nearest star to the Earth, apart from the Sun, is Proxima Centauri, which is _________ light-years away.
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13. We find that the mean pressure in the sun is at least 500 million
times the ___________ pressure of earths atmosphere; 14. The three ways in which teat can be transported; by ________, by __________ and by ______________. Short questions with answer Q1. When latitudes of various stars obtained? Ans. In the 11th century, Ab Rayhn al-Brn described the Milky Way galaxy as multitude of fragments having the properties of nebulous stars, and also gave the latitudes of various stars during a lunar eclipse in 1019. Q2. Why stars exerted no net gravitational pull on the solar system? Ans. Isaac Newton suggested that the stars were equally distributed in every direction so that the stars exerted no net gravitational pull on the solar system. Q3. What is the most useful entity to determine the characteristics of the star? Ans. Initial Mass is the most important entity used to determine various characteristics of the star. It can be used to determine almost everything about a star, including essential characteristics such as luminosity and size, as well as the star's evolution, lifespan, and eventual fate. Q4. What is a star? Ans. A star is a massive, luminous ball of plasma that is held together by gravity. Q5. What is Hertzsprung-Russell diagram? Ans. A Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (HR diagram) which allows the age and evolutionary state of a star to be determined is a plot of the temperature of many stars against their luminosities Q6. What is Binary and multi-star systems? Ans. Binary and multi-star systems consist of two or more stars that is gravitationally bound, and generally moves around each other in stable orbits. Q7. What factors influence the magnetic fields of a star? Ans. The strength of the magnetic field varies with the mass and composition of the star, and the amount of magnetic surface activity depends upon the star's rate of rotation. Q8. Name the factors affecting the rate of rotation of a star on a main sequence?
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Ans. The star's magnetic field and the stellar wind serve to slow down a main sequence star's rate of rotation by a significant amount as it evolves on the main sequence. Q9. Which characteristics of the star are used to classify it? Ans. The surface temperature of a star, along with its visual absolute magnitude and absorption features, is used to classify a star. Q10. What are starspots? Ans. Surface patches with a lower temperature and luminosity than average are known as starspots. Q11. Why spectrums of the star differ? Ans. The difference in the stellar spectra is due mostly to the widely differing temperatures in the outer layers of the various stars. Q12. How velocity of a star is determined? Ans. The proper motion of a star is determined by precise astrometric measurements in units of milli-arc seconds (mas) per year. By determining the parallax of a star, the proper motion can then be converted into units of velocity. Q13. How stars are structured in the universe? Ans. Stars are not spread uniformly across the universe, but are normally grouped into galaxies along with interstellar gas and dust. Q14. Why collisions between stars are thought to be rare? Ans. Due to the relatively vast distances between stars outside the galactic nucleus, collisions between stars are thought to be rare. Q115. What is the composition of a star? Ans. Overwhelming majority of particles of which the stars are made are the free electrons and atomic nuclei, and most of the later are simple protons. Study Questions Q1. What was the belief of ancient astronomers about stars? Q2. What is the significance of the spectrum of a star in determining its properties? Q3. How stars are designated? What are astronomical naming conventions? Q4. What is Eddington Luminosity? Q5. How the rotation rate of stars can be approximated? Q6. What is Spectral Sequence? Q7. The Sun has an apparent magnitude of 26.7, but its absolute magnitude is only +4.83. Why?
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Q8. What are the components of motion of a star? Q9. How stars are distributed in the universe? Q10. Write a note on? (i) Hydrostatic Equilibrium. (ii) Perfect Gas Law: (iii) Minimum Pressure and Temperature in Stellar Interior. (iv) Thermal Equilibrium. (v) Heat Transfer in a Star. Q11. Discuss the interior of a stable star?
Chapter 6
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Ejnar Hertzsprung (8 October, 1873 - 21 October, 1967) was a Danish chemist and astronomer. In the
period 1911-1913, together with Henry Norris Russell, Russell he developed the Hertzsprunghis greatest the
diagram. to
Perhaps astronomy
contribution
was
development of a classification system for stars to divide them by spectral type, stage in their development, and luminosity. The so-called "Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram" was used for many years as a classification system to explain stellar types and evolution
Henry Norris Russell (October 25, 1877 February 18, 1957) was an American astronomer who, along with Ejnar Hertzsprung, developed the Hertzsprung Russell diagram (1910). In 1923, working with Frederick Saunders, he developed Russell Saunders coupling which is also known as LS coupling.
Stellar Evolution
No star that is shining today can be infinitely old, for eventually it will exhaust its source of energy. The stars of highest known luminosity (100 thousand to a million times that of the sun) can continue to exist at the rate they are no expending energy for only a few million years. Had they been formed when the sun was formed, thousands of millions of years ago, they would long since have burned themselves out. At least therefore, some stars have formed recently (in astronomical time scale) and there is very reason to expect that the stars are still forming today. 6.1 Hertzsprung-Russell diagram
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In 1911 the Danish astronomer E. Hertzsprung compared the colors and luminosity of stars within several clusters by plotting their magnitudes against their colors. In 1913 the American astronomer Henry Norris Russel undertook a similar investigation of stars in the solar neighborhood by plotting absolute magnitudes of stars of known distance against their spectral colors. The investigations by Hertzsprung and by Russell led to an extremely important discovery concerning the relation between the luminosity and the surface temperatures of star. The discovery is exhibited graphically on a diagram named in the honor of two astronomers the HertzsprungRussell diagram Figure 6.1 6.2 Features of H-R diagram To easily derive the characteristics of stars of known distances are their absolute magnitudes (or luminosities) and their surface temperature. The most significant feature of the H-R diagram is that the stars are not distributed over it at random, exhibiting all combinations of absolute magnitude and temperature but rather cluster into certain parts of the diagram. The majority of stars are aligned along a narrow sequence running from upper left (hot highly luminous) part of the diagram to the lower right (cool less luminous) part. This band of points is called main sequence. A substantial number of stars lie above the main sequence of the H-R diagram in the upper right (cool, highly luminous), these are called giants. At the top part of the diagram are the stars of even higher luminosity, called supergiants. Finally, there are stars in the lower left (hot, low luminosity) corner known as white dwarfs. To say that a star lies on or off the main sequence does not refer to its position in luminosity and temperature on the H-R diagram.
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Figure 6.1 Hertzsprung-Russell diagram for a set of stars that includes the Sun (center). An H-R diagram, as shown in Figure 6.1 that is, plotted for stars of known distances does not show the relative proportions of various kinds of stars, because only the nearest of the intrinsically joint star can be observed. To be truly representative of stellar population an H-R diagram should be plotted for all stars within certain distance. Unfortunately, our knowledge is reasonable complete only for stars within a few parsecs of the sun, among which there are no giant or supergiants. It is estimated that about 90 percent of the star in our part of the space are main sequence stars and about 10 percent are white dwarfs. Less than 1 percent is giants or supergiants. 6.3 Formation of Star Here and there, in comparatively dense regions of interstellar matter, small condensation begins to form atoms of gas and particles of dust slowly begin to collect under the influence of their mutual gravitation. The trick, then to forming a star is to arrange for relatively dense cloud of interstellar matter. Most of the gas and the heat in the space are clearly at too low a density to collapse into star or there
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would be no interstellar matter left. Stars are formed within extended regions of higher density in the interstellar medium, although the density is still lower than the inside of an earthly vacuum chamber. These regions are called molecular clouds and consist mostly of hydrogen, with about 2328% helium and a few percent heavier elements. One example of such a star-forming region is the Orion Nebula. As massive stars are formed from molecular clouds, they powerfully illuminate those clouds. They also ionize the hydrogen, creating an H II region. How then, do star formed? Several different scenarios by which a protostar condensation may get started are as follows 6.4 Protostar formation (some mechanisms) 1. Direct collision of interstellar clouds can cause an increase of density that could lead to stellar condensations. One way that such collisions can occur is by gas clouds, in a normal galactic rotation encountering density waves of spiral arms. Since the pattern of spiral structures rotates more slowly than the normal galactic rotation, gas clouds should be plowing into the arms along their trailing edges. Consistent with the idea in some other galaxies we see super luminous young stars concentrated along the trailing edges of those galaxies arms.
Figure 6.2 A star forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud. NASA/ESA image.
2.
At the interface between HII regions and in the surrounding HI regions, we expect a buildup of density due to expansion of hot gas in the HII regions (since the hydrogen is the main constituent of the gas we often characterize the region of interstellar space according to whether its hydrogen is
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neutral an HI region or ionized HII region). The elephant trunk intrusions of cooler gas and dust in advancing front of hot HII regions Figure 6.3. A young star cluster NGC2264 appears to have been formed recently in such region.
Isolated small clouds of mass estimated at from 20 to several hundred solar masses-globules, an excellent example of a globule is the colasack, a dark region of Milky Way in the direction of Southern Cross Figure 6.4. Astronomer Bart Bok has long called the attention to such globules as probable clouds of gas and dust collapsing into stars or cluster of stars.
Figure 6.4 Fine globule in the southern coalsack the diameter is about a third of a parsec, and the mass is estimated to be 20 solar masses. In the center the absorption by dust of visible light is near 20 magnitudes
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4.
Supernova explosions release an enormous amount of energy both in electromagnetic radiation and in the form of violent stellar wind. The energy, like the expanding matter in HII regions, can be effective mechanism for compressing surrounding matter into protostar. Among the most promising sites of star formation are cold molecular clouds. Pare of the energy of the particles in these clouds excites the state of rotation and vibration in the molecules, after which those molecules radiate that energy into the space as infrared and radio waves. In this way, energy is removed from the clouds, which cools it. As it cools, the cloud must contract, until it become gravitationally unstable and becomes a protostar. A well studied clod molecular clouds behind the Orion nebula is believed to be such site.
5.
Figure 6.5 Artist's conception of the birth of a star within a dense molecular cloud. NASA image Once the stellar condensation starts probability that contracting cloud has at least some rotation, it is for no other reason that it is formed from the material undergoing the differential rotation in the galaxy, Early on , the rotation is likely to be exceedingly slow, but to conserve the angular momentum the cloud must spin faster an faster as it contract. The angular momentum in fact, will probably prevent the clouds collapsing entirely to a single star. In the solar system, the
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nebula flattened to a disk, and the planets accreted in the disk. Today, the planets posses 98 percent of the angular momentum of the entire system. The formation of planets may be a common place, but often, at least the cloud must split and form two or more stars, whose orbital motion about each other contain most of the angular momentum. It may be that formation of planetary system or a multiple star systems are two alternatives open to a condensing cloud. The formation of a star begins with a gravitational instability inside a molecular cloud, often triggered by shock waves from supernovae (massive stellar explosions) or the collision of two galaxies (as in a starburst galaxy). Once a region reaches a sufficient density of matter to satisfy the criteria for Jeans Instability it begins to collapse under its own gravitational force. The Jeans Instability occurs when the internal gas pressure is not strong enough to prevent gravitational collapse of a region filled with matter. For stability, the cloud must be in hydrostatic equilibrium such that
Where Menc is the enclosed mass, p is the pressure, is the density of the gas, G is the gravitational constant and r is the radius. T) 6.5 Young Star The evolution of a stellar condensation after it has solved the problem of angular momentum moves on the path of becoming a normal star. As its matter contracts, its density increases until eventually it become opaque to electromagnetic radiation. The very contraction, however, releases gravitational potential energy and when the protostar become opaque, all of that energy cannot be radiated away. And some become trapped. This heats the interior of star and raises the internal pressure. When those pressures become high enough to support the weights of outer material that has been falling inward, hydrostatic equilibrium is reached. Calculations by R. B. Larson show that equilibrium is reached in the central region first, while the matter from the outer parts of nebula is still falling in, compressing heating and joining the condensed core. When the protostellar cloud has approximately reached the stable condition of hydrostatic equilibrium,
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a protostar forms at the core. Thus, a stellar embryo forms inside, which is surrounded by a collapsing envelop that has not yet come to hydrostatic equilibrium. At least in some stars dust should condense in that envelope, which may completely hide a star in visible light. However, the energy radiated from the hot embryo and then absorbed by the dusty envelope must be reradiated at wavelengths characteristics of lower temperature of the envelope, that is, in infrared. For this reason, observational search for extremely young stars are made at infrared wavelengths. A young star itself is not yet self-sustaining with nuclear reactions but drives its energy from the gravitational contraction. The period of gravitational contraction lasts for about 1015 million years. As the radiation filters out through the opaque star and is eventually radiated into the space. The internal temperature and the pressure would drop, upsetting the hydrostatic equilibrium, unless the star contracts slightly. Half of the energy released by contraction escapes as radiation , contributing to the stars luminosity , while the other half heats the interior, continually building up the internal pressure to support the increased weights of layers in the star the weight of each shell of material is inversely proportional to the square of the radius of the shell. In theoretical study of stellar evolution, we compare a series of models for a star each successive model representing a later point in time. Given one model, we can calculate how the star should change (in the case of young star currently under discussion, due to gravitational contraction), and hence what the star will be like at a slight later time. At each step we find the luminosity and the radius of the star and from these its surface temperature and we can find where the star (or its embryo) should be represented on Herhzsprung - Russel diagram. We thus follow the theoretical evolution of the star from its calculate track on H-R diagram. In the early contraction phase, star transports its internal energy by convection currents. The Japanese astrophysicist C Hayashi first showed that such star must lie in a zone on H-R diagram extending nearly vertically from the lower main sequence to the right extreme of the regions occupied by red supergiants (shaded region Figure 6.6) There can be no stable star such that the point representing it on H-R
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diagram lies to the right of this zone. In accordance with Hayashi theory, stars in the initial stage of their evolution contract and move downward (on H-R diagram) in a zone along Hayashi line. Representative tracks for stars or stellar embryos of several masses and of chemical composition more or less like the suns are shown in Figure 6.6.
Figure 6.6 Theoretical evolutionary track of contracting stars or stellar embryos on Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. According to the calculations by Larson, stars or embryos lying roughly above the dashed line are still surrounded by infalling matter and would be hidden by it. With the exception for stars of low masses, after the period of some thousands or millions of years, the convection current ceases at the center of the star, and the energy must be transported by radiation in those regions. The central zone in radiative equilibrium gradually grows in size, while the convection current extends less and less deeply beneath the stellar surface. In this stage of stellar evolution, the star or its embryo, still slowly shrinking and deriving its energy from gravitational contraction, turns sharply on the H-R diagram and moves left almost horizontally, towards the main sequence. Eventually, as the release of gravitational energy continues to heat up the stars interior, its central temperature become high enough to support the nuclear reactions. Soon this new source of energy supplies heat to the interior of the star as fast as the energy is radiated away. The central pressures and temperatures are thus maintained and the contraction of star ceases; it is now on the main
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sequences by this time the in falling of the material is complete and the star is fully formed. A small on the evolutionary tracks of the stars, shown in Figure 6.6, just before they reach the main sequence are the points (according to theory) where the onset of nuclear-energy release occurs. Calculations by Larson show that the stars more massive than the sun would not be visible to us during most of their pre-main sequence evolution because the light they emit is absorbed by the surrounding dust in the in falling material. By the time the stars of mass appreciably greater than the suns have reached the main sequence, the outer convection zone has disappeared, but new cores of convection exist at their centers. Main sequence stars of mass near that of the sun still have appreciable regions in their outer layers in convection, with their deep interiors in radiative equilibrium and follow the Hayashi lines right down to the main sequence, where nuclear reactions finally stops their contraction. Stars of extremely low mass, on the other hand, never achieve high enough central temperature to ignite the nuclear reactions They continues to contract until ( after an extremely long time) they are so dense that their matter become degenerate, and they reach white dwarf stage, the lower end of the main sequence is considered to be that point at which star have a mass just barely great enough to sustain nuclear reaction at sufficient rate to stop gravitational contraction; this critical mass is calculated to be near 1/12 that of the sun. Early stars of less than 2 solar masses are called T Tauri stars, while those with greater mass are Herbig Ae/Be stars. These newly born stars emit jets of gas along their axis of rotation, producing small patches of nebulosity known as Herbig-Haro objects. At the other extreme the upper end of main sequence terminates at the point where the mass of the star would be so high and the internal temperature so great that the radiation pressure would dominate. The radiation produced from nuclear reactions would be so extreme that when absorbed by the stellar material it would impart to it a force greater than that produced by the gravitation; hence, such a star could not be stable. The upper limit to stellar mass is calculated to be in the range 60 to 100 solar masses. In general, the pre main sequence evolution of a star down with time; the numbers labeling the points on each evolution track in
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Figure 6.6 are the times in years, required for the embryo star to reach those stages of contraction. The time for whole evolutionary process is highly mass dependent. Stars of mass much higher than the suns reach the main sequence in few thousands to a million years; the sun requires millions of years; tens of millions of years are required for stars to evolve to the lower main sequence. For stars three evolutionary time scales are distinguished. 1. The initial gravitational collapse from interstellar matter is relatively quick once the condensation is; say 1000 AU in diameter, the time for it to reach the hydrostatic equilibrium is measured in thousands of years. 2. Pre main sequence gravitational contraction is much more gradual, from onset of hydrostatic equilibrium to the main sequence requires, typically, millions of years. 3. Subsequent evolution on the main sequence is very slow, for a star changes only as thermonuclear reactions alter its chemical composition. For a star of a solar mass, this gradual process requires thousands of millions of years. All evolutionary stages are relatively faster in stars of high mass and slow in those of low mass. 6.6 Evolution from The Main sequence to Giants As soon as the star has reached the main sequence, it derives its energy almost entirely from the thermonuclear conversion of hydrogen to helium. Stars spend about 90% of their lifetime fusing hydrogen to produce helium in high-temperature and high-pressure reactions near the core. Here only 0.7 percent hydrogen used up is converted to energy, the star does not change its mass appreciably, but in its central regions, where the nuclear reaction occur, the chemical composition gradually changes as hydrogen is depleted and helium is accumulated there. This change of composition forces the star to change its structure, including its luminosity and size. Eventually the point that represents it on H-R diagram evolves away from the main sequence. The original main sequence, corresponding to stars of homogeneous chemical composition, is called zero age main sequence. Starting at zero-age main sequence, the proportion of helium in a star's core will steadily increase. As a consequence, in order to maintain the required rate of nuclear fusion at the core, the
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star will slowly increase in temperature and luminosity. The Sun, for example, is estimated to have increased in luminosity by about 40% since it reached the main sequence 4.6 billion years ago. Every star generates a stellar wind of particles that causes a continual outflow of gas into space. For most stars, the amount of mass lost is negligible. The Sun loses 1014 solar masses every year, or about 0.01% of its total mass over its entire lifespan. However, very massive stars can lose 107 to 105 solar masses each year, significantly affecting their evolution. Stars that begin with more than 50 solar masses can lose over half their total mass while they remain on the main sequence. 6.7 Evolution from The Main sequence to Giants
As helium accumulate at the expense of hydrogen in the center of the star, the temperature and the density increases in the region. Consequently the rate of nuclear energy generation increases and the luminosity of the star slowly rise. A star, therefore does not remain indefinitely exactly on the zero-age main sequence. In fact, the main sequence of a star cluster gradually rises in H-R diagram as cluster ages. The most massive and luminous stars alter their chemical composition most quickly, thus the main sequence rises more rapidly at the bright end, but scarcely not all at the faint end, even after billions of years. This stage of evolution does not cause the main sequence of a star cluster to deform appreciably, because the star increases its luminosity only by small amount-probably less than a magnitude before subsequent more rapid changes alter its structure enormously. When the hydrogen has been depleted completely in the central part of the star, a core develops containing helium contaminated by whatever small percentages of heaver elements the star has to begin with. The duration that a star spends on the main sequence depends primarily on the amount of fuel it has to fuse and the rate at which it fuses that fuel. In other words, its initial mass and its luminosity. For the Sun, this is estimated to be about 1010 years. Large stars consume their fuel very rapidly and are short-lived. Small stars (called red dwarfs) consume their fuel very slowly and last tens to hundreds of billions of years. At the end of their lives, they simply become dimmer and dimmer. However, since the lifespan of such stars is greater than the current age of the universe (13.7 billion years), no
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such stars are expected to exist yet. Besides mass, the portion of elements heavier than helium can play a significant role in the evolution of stars. In astronomy all elements heavier than helium are considered a "metal", and the chemical concentration of these elements is called the metallicity. The metallicity can influence the duration that a star will burn its fuel, control the formation of magnetic fields and modify the strength of the stellar wind. Older, population II stars have substantially less metallicity than the younger, population I stars due to the composition of the molecular clouds from which they formed. (Over time these clouds become increasingly enriched in heavier elements as older stars die and shed portions of their atmospheres.) When the energy source from hydrogen burning is now used up and with nothing more to supply heat to the helium core, it begins again to contract gravitationally. Once more the stars energy is partially supplied by the potential energy released from contracting core; the rest of its energy comes from hydrogen burning in the region immediately surrounding the core. These changes result in a substantial and rather rapid readjustment of the stars entire structure, so that the star leaves the vicinity of the main sequence altogether. About ten percent of a stars mass must be depleted of hydrogen before the star evolves away from the main sequence. The more luminous and a massive star, and sooner this happen, ending its term on the main sequence. Because total rate of energy production in a star must be equal to its luminosity, the core hydrogen is used up first in the very luminous stars. The massive stars spend less than1 million years on the main sequence; a star of one solar mass remain there for 1010 years and a spectral type M0V star of about 0,4 solar mass has the main sequence life of 2 x 1011 years. 6.8 Evolution to Red Giants
As the core contracts it releases gravitational potential energy, which is absorbed in surrounding envelope, these by forcing the outer parts of star to distend greatly. The star as a whole, therefore, expands to enormous proportions; all but its central parts acquire a very low density. The expansion of the outer layers causes them to cool and the star become red. Meanwhile, some of the potential energy released from the contracting core heats up the hydrogen
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surrounding it to even higher temperatures. In these hot regions the conversion of hydrogen to helium accelerates, causing most actually to increase its total luminosity. After leaving the main sequence, then, stars move to upper right portion of the H-R diagram; they become red giants. As shown in Figure 6.7 which is based on theoretical calculations by Illinois astronomer Icko Iben, shows the tracks of evolution on the HR diagram from the main sequence to the red giants for the stars of several representative masses and with chemical composition similar to that of the sun. Broad band is the zero-age main sequence. The numbers along the tracks indicates the times, in years required for the stars to reach those points on their evolution after leaving the main sequence.
Figure 6.7 Predicted evolutions of the stars from the main sequence to red giants. 6.9 Final Stage of Evolution: Death of an old Star
After the star has become the redgiant the core of the star is shrinking while the outer envelope extends. Gravitational energy released in the contracting core heats it, until by the time a star releases top of the red giant branch on H-R diagram its central temperature exceeds 100 million Kelvin. At such high temperature, nuclear process other than carbon cycle and proton-proton chain are
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possible. The most important of these is the formation of a carbon nucleus by three helium nuclei (the triple alpha process- so named because the nucleus of helium atom is called an alpha particle). Successive bombardment of a carbon nucleus by helium nuclei can build up other still heavier nuclei. The astrophysicist G. Burbidge, E. Burbidge, W. Fowler and F. Hoyle have found the mechanism whereby virtually all the chemical elements upto iron can be synthesized in the center of the red giant stars, in approximately the relative abundances with which they occur in nature. It now seems quite possible that a gradual buildup of elements heavier than helium is continually going on in the hot centers of at lease more massive red giants. The triple alpha process is expected to begin abruptly in the central core of red giant. As the core evolves, not only does it get very hot but also very dense, and the number of inner most part becomes electron degenerate. Meanwhile the surrounding matter soon exhausts all its hydrogen and also contracts until it become electron degenerate and join the core. With its increased mass and consequent release of gravitational energy, core becomes smaller and nondegenerate nuclei become hotter. Thus the degenerate core continues to contract and heat. As soon as the temperature become high enough to start triple alpha process going, the extra energy released is transmitted quickly through the entire degenerate core, producing a rapid heating of all helium there. With the sudden rise in temperature, helium burning accelerates; the phenomenon is called helium flash. New energy released removes the degeneracy, expands the core, and reverse the growth of outer parts of red giant. The star then shrinks rapidly and increase surface temperature. Calculations indicates that the points representing a star on H-R diagram takes on a new position either to the left of its place as a red giant or somewhat below it. Usually a newly formed carbon nucleus is joined by another helium nucleus to produce the nucleus of oxygen. As soon as the helium is exhausted in the central region, the energy release from triple alpha process is over, and we have the situation analogous to that of a main-sequence star when its central hydrogen is used up, and hydrogen burning ceases in its center. Now we have the core of carbon and oxygen (and perhaps heavier elements) surrounded by a shell where helium is still burning; further out in the star is another shell where hydrogen is left and still burning. The star
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now moves on H-R diagram back to red giant domain, calculations indicates that a star may actually first to the left across the H-R diagram, and then back to be a red giant several times, each time as consequence of onset of new nuclear reactions or of nuclear energy released in new parts of the star. All these evolutionary stages occur in tens or hundreds of millions of years or less-a brief time compared with the stars main-sequence lives. Some observational evidences supporting the theoretical calculations in the presence of horizontal branch of star on H-R diagram of globular clusters and possibly some open clusters.
Figure 6.8 Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star approaching the end of its life cycle Thus during their helium-burning phase, very high mass stars with more than nine solar masses expand to form red supergiants. Once this fuel is exhausted at the core, they can continue to fuse elements heavier than helium. The core contracts until the temperature and pressure are sufficient to fuse carbon. This process continues, with the successive stages being fueled by neon, oxygen, and silicon. Near the end of the star's life, fusion can occur along a series of onion-layer shells within the star. Each shell fuses a different element, with the outermost shell fusing hydrogen; the next shell fusing helium, and so forth. The final stage is reached when the star begins producing iron. Since iron nuclei are more tightly bound than any heavier nuclei, if they are fused they do not release energythe process would, on the contrary, consume energy. Likewise, since they are more tightly bound than all lighter nuclei, energy cannot be released by fission. In relatively old, very massive stars, a large core of inert iron will accumulate in the center of the star. The heavier
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elements in these stars can work their way up to the surface, forming evolved objects known as Wolf-Rayet stars that have a dense stellar wind which sheds the outer atmosphere. 6.10 Chemical composition or Metallicity When stars form in the present Milky Way galaxy they are composed of about 71% hydrogen and 27% helium, as measured by mass, with a small fraction of heavier elements. Typically the portion of heavy elements is measured in terms of the iron content of the stellar atmosphere, as iron is a common element and its absorption lines are relatively easy to measure. Because the molecular clouds where stars form are steadily enriched by heavier elements from supernovae explosions, a measurement of the chemical composition of a star can be used to infer its age. The portion of heavier elements may also be an indicator of the likelihood that the star has a planetary system. The star with the lowest iron content ever measured is the dwarf HE1327-2326, with only 1/200,000th the iron content of the Sun. By contrast, the super-metal-rich star Leonis has nearly double the abundance of iron as the Sun, while the planet-bearing star 14 Herculis has nearly triple the iron. There also exist chemically peculiar stars that show unusual abundances of certain elements in their spectrum; especially chromium and rare earth elements. 6.11 Stellar Nucleosynthesis A variety of different nuclear fusion reactions take place inside the cores of stars, depending upon their mass and composition, as part of stellar nucleosynthesis. The net mass of the fused atomic nuclei is smaller than the sum of the constituents. This lost mass is released as electromagnetic energy, according to the mass-energy equivalence relationship E = mc.The hydrogen fusion process is temperature-sensitive, so a moderate increase in the core temperature will result in a significant increase in the fusion rate. As a result the core temperature of main sequence stars only varies from 4 million K for a small M-class star to 40 million K for a massive O-class star. In the Sun, with a 10 million K core, hydrogen fuses to form helium in the proton-proton chain reaction:
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41H 22H + 2e+ + 2e (4.0 MeV + 1.0 MeV) 21H + 22H 23He + 2 (5.5 MeV) 23He 4He + 21H (12.9 MeV) These reactions result in the overall reaction: 41H 4He + 2e+ + 2 + 2e (26.7 MeV) Where e+ is a positron, is a gamma ray photon, e is a neutrino, and H and He are isotopes of hydrogen and helium, respectively. The energy released by this reaction is in millions of electron volts, which is actually only a tiny amount of energy. However enormous numbers of these reactions occur constantly, producing all the energy necessary to sustain the star's radiation output. In more massive stars, helium is produced in a cycle of reactions catalyzed by carbonthe carbon-nitrogen-oxygen cycle. In evolved stars with cores at 100 million K and masses between 0.5 and 10 solar masses, helium can be transformed into carbon in the triple-alpha process that uses the intermediate element beryllium:
Neon 8 Table 6.1 Minimum stellar mass required for fusion 4He + 4He + 92 keV 8*Be 4He + 8*Be + 67 keV 12*C 12*C 12C + + 7.4 MeV For an overall reaction of: 34He 12C + + 7.2 MeV
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In massive stars, heavier elements can also be burned in a contracting core through the neon burning process and oxygen burning process. The final stage in the stellar nucleosynthesis process is the silicon burning process that results in the production of the stable isotope iron-56. Fusion can not proceed any further except through an endothermic process, and so further energy can only be produced through gravitational collapse. The example below shows the amount of time required for a star of 20 solar masses to consume all of its nuclear fuel. As an O-class main sequence star, it would be 8 times the solar radius and 62,000 times the Sun's luminosity. Temperature Density Burningduration Fuel material (million kelvins) (kg/cm) ( in years) H He C Ne O S/Si 37 188 870 1,570 1,980 3,340 0.0045 0.97 170 3,100 5,550 33,400 8.1 million 1.2 million 976 0.6 1.25 0.0315
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Figure 6.10 The carbon-nitrogen-oxygen cycle I.11 Variable Stars Most of the stars shine with constant light. A minority, however are variable in magnitude. The standard International Index of stars that vary in light is Soviet General Catalogue of variable stars. The 1968 edition of this catalogue lists 20448 known variable stars in our Galaxy, but supplements of this catalogue increase the number yearly.
I. Designation The variable stars are designated in order of the
time of discovery in the constellation in which they occur. If the star that is discovered to vary in light already has the proper name or a Greek letter designation, it retains that name; examples are Polaris, Betelgeuse (or Orion), Algol and
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Cephide, otherwise the first star to be recognized as a variable in a constellation is designated by capital letter R followed by possessive of the Latin name of the constellation. For example, R Coronae Borealis. Subsequently discovered variables in the same constellation are designated with the letters S, T, -------Z,
Figure 6.11 The asymmetrical appearance of Mira, an oscillating variable star. NASA HST image RR, RS-------RZ, SS, ST --------SZ and so on until ZZ is reached. Then the letters AA.AB, ----AZ, BB, BC-------BZ and so on used upto QZ except that the letter J is omitted. This designation takes care of first 334 variable stars in any one constellation. Thereafter the letter V followed by number is used beginning with V335 examples are V335 Hercules and V335 Ophiuchi.
II. Light Curve A variable star is studied by analyzing its
spectrum and by measuring the variation of its light with lapse of time. Some stars show the light variation that is apparent to the unaided eye. Generally the apparent brightness of a
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variable star is determined by the telescope observation. The three techniques most commonly employed are as following: a. The magnitude of the variable is estimated by visual observation through the telescope, by comparing its brightness of neighboring star of known magnitude. b. The magnitude of the variable star is measured by comparing its image with the image of comparing star on a telescope. c. The magnitude of the variable is determined by photoelectric photometry. A graph that shows how the magnitude of a variable star changes with time is called Light Curve of a star. As shown in Figure 6.12. The maximum is the point on the light curve where the maximum amount of light is received from the star; the minimum is the point where the least amount of light is received. If the light variation of variable star repeats themselves periodically, the interval between the successive maxima is called period of a star. The median light of a variable star is amount of light it emits when it is halfway between maxima and minima. The amplitude is the difference between maxima and minima. The amplitudes of variable stars range from less than 0.1 to several magnitudes.
Figure 6.12 Light curve of typical Cepheid variable. III. Types of variable Stars The general catalogue of variable stars lists three types of variable stars
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(a)
Pulsating Variables These are the stars that periodically expand and contract, pulsating in size as well as in light. That is, pulsating variable stars vary in radius and luminosity over time, expanding and contracting with periods ranging from minutes to years, depending on the size of the star. This category includes Cepheid and Cepheid-like stars, and long-period variables such as Mira. (b) Eruptive Variables In these stars the sudden, unusual unpredictable outburst of light or in some cases, diminutions of light is seen, that is, eruptive variables are stars that experience sudden increases in luminosity because of flares or mass ejection events. This group includes protostars, Wolf-Rayet stars, and Flare stars, as well as giant and supergiant stars.
(d)
Long period Variables The largest group pulsating star consists of Mira-type stars; these are named after their prototype, Mira in the constellation of Cetus other large group pulsating stars are RR Lyrae variables; the semiregular variables and the irregular variables. The Mira or red variables are giant stars that pulsate in very long or somewhat irregular periods of months or years. Because they are not highly predictable, an important service provided by amateur astronomers who keep track of the magnitudes of these stars. group in astronomy, they are large yellow stars named for proto type and first known star of group Cepheid. The magnitude of Cepheid varies between 3,6 to 4.3 in period of 5.4 days Figure 6.12.More than 700 Cepheids variables
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are known in our Galaxy. Most Cepheids have period in the range 3 to 50 days and absolute magnitude from -1.5 to -5.
(f)
RR Lyrae Next to long term variables, the most common variable stars are RR Lyrae stars; named for RR Lyrae. They are approximately 4500 in our Galaxy. Almost all of them are found in the nucleus of our Galaxy. They have the period of less than a day it is in the range 0.3 to 0.7 days. Their amplitude never exceeds two magnitude and most stars have magnitude less than one. Number 13,782 1,618 4,062 986 20,448
Type Pulsating Eruptive Eclipsing Unclassified or unstudied All Kinds Table 6.3 Number of Variable Stars
6.13 Binary Stars Roughly half the stars around the sun are found
in pairs (binary stars) or in a system of three or more, ranging upto cluster of thousands each star moving under the combined gravitational influence of other. 6.14 Discovery of Binary Stars In 1650 the Italian Jesuit astronomer Giovanni Baptista Riccioli observed that the star Mizar in the middle of the handle of the Big Dipper appeared through his telescope as two stars. Mizar was first double star to be discovered. In the century and half that followed, many other closely separated pairs of stars were discovered telescopically. One famous double star is Castor in Gemini They are separated by an angle of nearly 5 in 1804, when Herschel had noted that the fainter component of Castor and changed, slightly its direction from the brighter component. Here, finally was observational evidence that one star was moving about another; it was first evidence that the gravitational influences exists outside the solar system. Catalogue prepared by John Herschel contain more than 10,000 systems of two, three or more stars.
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If the gravitational force between the stars is like those in the solar system, the orbit of one star about the other must be an ellipse. Evidence in this regard was found by Felix Savary in 1827 who showed that relative orbits of the two stars in double system Ursae Majoris is an ellipse, the stars completing one mutual revolution in a period of 80 years. Binary stars are now known to be very common; they may be the rule, not the exception, In the stellar neighborhood of the sun somewhere between one half and two third of all the stars are members of binary or multiple star system, Different types of binary star systems can be summarized as follows:
I. Optical Doubles These are two stars in nearly same line of sight,
which one is far more distant than the other, they are not they are not true binary stars, and are not discussed further.
II. Visual Binaries These are gravitationally associated pairs of stars;
the members are either so near the sun or so widely separated from each other (usually, both) that they can be observed visually (in the telescope) as two stars. The typical separations for the two stars in the visual binary system are hundreds of AU. Thus the orbital speeds of stars are usually quite small and their orbital motion may not be apparent over the few decades of observation. Nevertheless, two closely separated stars are generally assumed to comprise a visual binary system if there is no reason to doubt that they are at the same distance from us and if they have the same proper motion and radial velocity, indicating that they are moving together through space. Over 64,000 such systems are catalogued.
III. Astrometric Binaries Sometimes one member of what would
otherwise be a visual binary system is to faint to be observed; its presence may be detected, however, by the wavy motion of its companion, revolving about the invisible center of mass of the two stars as they move through the space. In 1844, Bessel discovered that the bright star Sirius; display such a motion with a period of 50 years. Sirius remained an astrometric binary until 1862, when Alvan G. Clark found its companion- a member of the class of stars known as white dwarfs. IV. Spectroscopic Binaries When the binary nature of the star is known only from the variations of its radial velocity (or of both radial velocities if the spectral lines of both stars are visible), it is said to
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be spectroscopic binary. Over 700 such systems have been analyzed. V. Spectrum Binaries If the orbit of what would otherwise be a spectroscopic binary is oriented nearly face On to us (that is, perpendicular to our line of sight), or if the masses of the member stars are so low that they have very small orbital velocities, we can see no radial-velocity variations. It may still be obvious, that they are two stars if the composite spectrum contains lines that are the characteristic of both hot and cold stars and which would not be expected to occur in the spectrum of a single star, such system is called spectrum binaries. VI. Eclipsing Binaries If the orbit of the binary system is oriented nearly edge on to us so that the stars eclipse each other, it is called eclipsing binary. More than 4000 such systems are catalogued. The different kinds of binaries are not mutually exclusive All eclipsing binary, for example, may also be spectroscopic binary, if I is bright enough that its spectrum can be photographed, and if its radial velocity variations have been observed. Also a small number of relatively nearby spectroscopic binaries can also be observed as visual binaries. Figure 6.13, 6.14 shows the mutual revolution of K60.
Figure 6.13 Photographs of showing the mutual revolution of the components of double star Kuger 60
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Figure 6.14 The mutual revolution during the period 12 years of the revolution of components of double star Kuger 60.
Summery
1. The most significant feature of the H-R diagram is that the stars are not distributed over it at random, exhibiting all combinations of absolute magnitude and temperature but rather cluster into certain parts of the diagram. 2. About 90 percent of the star in our part of the space is main sequence stars and about 10 percent are white dwarfs. Less than 1 percent is giants or supergiants. 3. Stars are formed within extended regions of higher density in the interstellar medium, although the density is still lower than the inside of an earthly vacuum chamber. 4. Several different scenarios by which a protostar condensation may get 5. Several different scenarios by which a protostar condensation may get started are as follows
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6. Direct collision of interstellar clouds can cause an increase of density that could lead to stellar condensations 7. At the interface between HII regions and in the surrounding HI regions, 8. Isolated small clouds of mass estimated at from 20 to several hundred solar masses-globules, 9. Supernova explosions release an enormous amount of energy both in electromagnetic radiation and in the form of violent stellar wind. 10. Among the most promising sites of star formation are cold molecular clouds. 11. It may be that formation of planetary system or a multiple star systems are two alternatives open to a condensing cloud 12. The upper limit to stellar mass is calculated to be in the range 60 to 100 solar masses 13. The time for whole evolutionary process is highly mass dependent. 14. The most massive and luminous stars alter their chemical composition most quickly, thus the main sequence rises more rapidly at the bright end, but scarcely not all at the faint end, even after billions of years 15. In astronomy all elements heavier than helium are considered a "metal", and the chemical concentration of these elements is called the metallicity 16. The metallicity can influence the duration that a star will burn its fuel, control the formation of magnetic fields and modify the strength of the stellar wind 17. It now seems quite possible that a gradual buildup of elements heavier than helium is continually going on in the hot centers of at lease more massive red giants. 18. The sudden rise in temperature, helium burning accelerates; the phenomenon is called helium flash. 19. Stars form in the present Milky Way galaxy they are composed of about 71% hydrogen and 27% helium, as measured by mass, with a small fraction of heavier elements. 20. A variety of different nuclear fusion reactions take place inside the cores of stars, depending upon their mass and composition, as part of stellar nucleosynthesis. 21. The net mass of the fused atomic nuclei is smaller than the sum of the constituents.
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22. The variable stars are designated in order of the time of discovery in the constellation in which they occur. 23. A variable star is studied by analyzing its spectrum and by measuring the variation of its light with lapse of time. 24. The median light of a variable star is amount of light it emits when it is halfway between maxima and minima.
Exercises
Fill in the blanks 1. A substantial number of stars lie above the main sequence of the H-R diagram in the upper right (cool, highly luminous), these are called ___________. 2. Stars in the lower left (hot, low luminosity) corner known as ___________. 3. To be truly representative of stellar population a ____________should be plotted for all stars within certain distance. 4. Stars are formed within extended regions of ______________ in the interstellar medium. 5. Supernova ___________ release an enormous amount of energy both in electromagnetic radiation and in the form of violent stellar wind. 6. The formation of a star begins with_____________ instability inside a molecular cloud. 7. The evolution of a stellar condensation after it has solved the problem of _______________ moves on the path of becoming a normal star. 8. The stars more massive than ________ would not be visible to us during most of their pre-main sequence evolution because the light they emit is absorbed by the surrounding dust in the in falling material. 9. The original _______________, corresponding to stars of homogeneous chemical composition, is called zero age main sequence. 10. A graph that shows how the magnitude of a variable star changes with time is called ______________ of a star. Short questions with answer
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Q1. What relation did the study by Hertzsprung and by Russell led to? Ans. The investigations by Hertzsprung and by Russell led to an extremely important discovery concerning the relation between the luminosity and the surface temperatures of star. Q2. How stars are aligned on Hertzsprung - Russell diagram? Ans. The majority of stars are aligned along a narrow sequence running from upper left (hot highly luminous) part of the diagram to the lower right (cool less luminous) part. This band of points is called main sequence. A substantial number of stars lie above the main sequence of the H-R diagram in the upper right (cool, highly luminous), these are called giants. At the top part of the diagram are the stars of even higher luminosity, called supergiants. Finally, there are stars in the lower left (hot, low luminosity) corner known as white dwarfs. Q3. What are the different scenarios by which a protostar condensation may get started? Ans. Several different scenarios by which a protostar condensation may get started are as follows Direct collision of interstellar clouds At the interface between HII regions and in the surrounding HI regions Isolated small clouds of mass estimated at from 20 to several hundred solar masses Q4. Ans. Q5. Ans. Q6. Ans. Supernova explosions What are the most promising sites of star formation? Among the most promising sites of star formation are cold molecular clouds. What are the alternatives open to a condensing cloud for the formation of star? That formation of planetary system or a multiple star systems are two alternatives open to a condensing cloud. What is Jeans Instability? It is an instability which occurs when the internal gas pressure is not strong enough to prevent gravitational
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collapse of a region filled with matter. Thus it begins to collapse under its own gravitational force. Q7. What are the factors that influence the evolution of a star? Ans. Mass and the portion of elements heavier than helium can play a significant role in the evolution of stars. Q8. What are metals in astronomy? What is the effect of metallicity on stellar evolution? Ans. In astronomy all elements heavier than helium are considered a "metal", and the chemical concentration of these elements is called the metallicity. The metallicity can influence the duration that a star will burn its fuel, control the formation of magnetic fields and modify the strength of the stellar wind Q9. What is the main sequence lifetime of different stars? Ans. The massive stars spend less than1 million years on the main sequence; a star of one solar mass remain there for 1010 years and a spectral type M0V star of about 0,4 solar mass has the Q10. Ans. main sequence life of 2 x 1011 years. What is the helium flash? When does it occur? As soon as the temperature become high enough to start triple alpha process going, the extra energy released is transmitted quickly through the entire degenerate core, producing a rapid heating of all helium there. With the sudden rise in temperature, helium burning accelerates; the phenomenon is called helium flash. What are the main processes of neucleosynthesis in the star? Proton-proton chain reaction and the carbon-nitrogen-oxygen cycle are the two main processes of neucleosynthesis in the star. What are the techniques employed to determine the magnitudes of the Variable stars? The three techniques most commonly employed are as following: a. The magnitude of the variable is estimated by visual observation through the telescope, by comparing its brightness of neighboring star of known magnitude.
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b. The magnitude of the variable star is measured by comparing its image with the image of comparing star on a telescope. c. The magnitude of the variable is determined by photoelectric photometry Q13. What are the types of variable stars? Ans. Different types of the variable stars are: Pulsating Variables Eruptive Variables Eclipsing Variables Long period Variables Cepheid Variables RR Lyrae Q14. What are the Binary stars? Ans. Stars around the sun those are found in pairs (binary stars) or in a system of three or more, ranging upto cluster of thousands each star moving under the combined gravitational influence of other are called binary stars. Q15. What are the types of the Binary star? Ans. The types of Binary stars are: Optical Doubles Visual Binaries Astrometric Binaries Spectroscopic Binaries Spectrum Binaries Eclipsing Binaries Study Questions Q1. What is the main features of H-R diagram? Q2. Write a note on mechanisms of the formation of Protostar? Q3. Explain the evolution of the Young Star? Q4. How the stars evolve from the main sequence to giants? Q5. Discuss the evolution of stars to Red Giants? Q6. What is zero-age main sequence?
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Q7. What are the sequences of events that occur in the final stage of evolution of a Star? Q8. Write a note on: Chemical composition or Metallicity of a star Stellar Nucleosynthesis Q9. What are Variable Stars? How they are designated? Discuss the typical light curve of a variable star? Q10. Explain different types of variable Stars. Q11. What are Binary Stars? How they are discovered? Q12. What are the different types of binary star systems? Explain?
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Chapter 7
Subrahmanyan
Chandrasekhar, FRS (October 19, 1910 August 21, 1995) was an Indian American astrophysicist. He was a Nobel laureate in physics along with William Alfred Fowler for their work in the theoretical structure and evolution of stars He was the nephew of Indian Nobel Laureate Sir C. V. Raman.
many have central densities in excess of 107 times that of water. A teaspoon full of such material would weigh nearly 50 tons.
Figure 7.1. A white dwarf star in orbit around Sirius (artist's impression). NASA image The first such rigorous model of white dwarfs was constructed by Indian astrophysicist S. Chandrasekhar. The analysis by Chandrasekhar shows that white dwarfs of masses successively
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greater than the suns are successively smaller than one percent of its radius, until a mass of 1.4 solar masses is reached, at which point the electrons do not become degenerate and hydrostatic equilibrium cannot be achieved Figure 7.2, thus 1.4 solar mass is the upper limit to the mass of white dwarf. A more massive star must continue to collapse to a far smaller size.
Figure 7.2 Theoretical relation between the masses and radii of white dwarf stars. Now those stars that have had time to exhaust their nuclear fuel supply and evolve to a white dwarf stage must have had original masses greater than 1.4 solar masses, for those more massive stars are the very ones that use up their energy store most rapidly. But in such stars electrons do not become degenerate, and star cannot become white dwarf. On the other hand, white dwarf stars are plentiful and they must have come from somewhere. To account for most or all evolved stars of original mass greater than 1.4 solar masses. It is thought therefore, that most stars eventually become white dwarfs. Consequently, they must lower their masses some how, before reaching the stage, by ejecting matter into space. White dwarfs have hot interior-tens of millions of Kelvin. At this temperature and at the high densities of these stars any remaining hydrogen would undergo violent fusion into helium, giving the luminosity many times higher than observed. Consequently, white dwarfs can have no hydrogen. Their most probable internal
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composition is a mixture of carbon and oxygen, the principal product of hydrogen burning Recent studies indicate that at least some white dwarfs probably have cores in which the matter has crystallized. Some also have very strong magnetic fields- upto hundred of millions of Gauss. Moreover, a few display light varieties with period of several minutes. Further, an evolved, average-size star after shedding its outer layers as a planetary nebula shrinks to a relatively tiny object (about the size of Earth) that is not massive enough for further compression to take place, known as a white dwarf. The electron-degenerate matter inside a white dwarf is no longer plasma, even though stars are generally referred to as being spheres of plasma. White dwarfs will eventually fade into black dwarfs over a very long stretch of time. 7.3 Eruptive Stars
There are many types of eruptive variable stars; they range from the flare (or UV Ceti) stars, which display occasional sudden flare-ups in brightness, through the novae, to a spectacular supernova I. Novae These are most famous eruptive variables. Novae, means new. Actually novae are an existing star that suddenly emits an outburst of light. In ancient times, when such an outburst brought a stars luminosity upto naked eye visibility, it seems like a new star. Novae remain bright for only few days or weeks and then gradually fade. They seldom remain visible to the unaided eyes for more than few months. The Chinese, whose annals record novae from centuries before Christ, called them guest stars. Only occasionally novae visible to naked eye, but, on average two or three are found telescopically every year. Many may escape detection altogether, they may be as many as two or three dozen nova outburst per year in our Galaxy. The light curve of typical nova is as shown in Figure7.3. According to currently favored theory, novae occur in close binary star system. In each of which one member is a star transferring mass to white dwarfs. All novae recur on some time scale or other; the most violent classic novae, which reached the visible magnitudes of
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-6 to -9, may wait hundred or thousands of years or more between outbursts. II. Supernovae Among the more spectacular of the cataclysm of nature is the supernova. In contrast to an ordinary nova, this increases in luminosity a paltry few thousands or at most tens of thousands of times. As fusion continues in larger stars, until the iron core has grown so large (more than 1.4 solar masses) that it can no longer support its own mass. The core suddenly collapse as its electrons are driven into its protons, forming neutrons and neutrinos in a burst of inverse beta decay, or electron capture. The shockwave formed by this sudden collapse causes the rest of the star to explode in a supernova. Supernovae are so bright that they may briefly outshine the star's entire home galaxy. When they occur within the Milky Way, supernovae have historically been observed by naked-eye observers as "new stars" where none existed before. At maximum light, supernova reaches absolute magnitude -14 to -18 or probably even -20. The three most famous supernovae have been observed during last ten centuries in our Galaxy they are (1) The Supernova of 1054 in Taurus (described in Chinese annals) (2) Tychos star of 1572 in constellation Cassiopeia, and (3) the supernova of 1604 in Serpens, described by both Kepler and Galileo. In a typical galaxy supernovae occur at the rate of one every 100 years. The light curve of supernova is similar to that of an ordinary nova expect for the far greater luminosity of supernova and its duration.
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There are several kinds of supernovae, but they all rise to maximum light extremely quickly (in few days or less) and for a brief time. Just after the maximum, the gradual decline sets in, and the star fades until it disappears from telescopic visibility within a few months or years after its outburst. Bright emission lines are observed in the spectra of supernovae indicating that they eject material at the time of outburst like ordinary novae. The velocity of ejection can be upto 10, 000 Km/s. Further, large amount of material is ejected; in fact, the large fraction of original star may go off in the expanding envelope. The blown-off outer layers of dying stars include heavy elements which may be recycled during new star formation. These heavy elements allow the formation of rocky planets. The outflow from supernovae and the stellar wind of large stars play an important part in shaping the interstellar medium. Most of the matter in the star is blown away by the supernovae explosion (forming nebulae such as the Crab Nebula and what remains will be a neutron star (which sometimes manifests itself as a pulsar or X-ray burster) or, in the case of the largest stars (large enough to leave a stellar remnant greater than roughly 4 solar masses), a black hole. In a neutron star the matter is in a state known as neutron-degenerate matter, with a more exotic form of degenerate matter, QCD matter, possibly present in the core. Within a black hole the matter is in a state that is not currently understood.
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Figure 7.4 The Crab Nebula, remnants of a supernova that was first observed around 1050 AD 7.4 Chandrasekhar limit Chandrasekhar limit limits the mass of bodies made from electrondegenerate matter-a dense form of matter which consists of nuclei immersed in a gas of electrons. The limit is the maximum nonrotating mass which can be supported against gravitational collapse by electron degeneracy pressure. It is named after the Indian astrophysicist Subramanian Chandrasekhar, and is commonly given as being about 1.4 solar masses. As white dwarfs are composed of electron-degenerate matter, no nonrotating white dwarf can be heavier than the Chandrasekhar limit. Stars produce energy through nuclear fusion, producing heavier elements from lighter ones. The heat generated from these reactions prevents gravitational collapse of the star. Over time, the star builds up a central core which consists of elements which the temperature at the center of the star is not sufficient to fuse. For main-sequence stars with a mass below approximately 8 solar masses, the mass of this core will remain below the Chandrasekhar limit, and they will eventually lose mass (as planetary nebulae) until only the core, which becomes a white dwarf, remains. Stars with higher mass will develop a degenerate core whose mass will grow until it exceeds the limit. At this point the star will explode in a core-collapse supernova, leaving behind either a neutron star or a black hole. Computed values for the limit will vary depending on the approximations used, the nuclear composition of the mass, and the temperature. Chandrasekhar. Gives a value of
Here, e is the average molecular weight per electron, mH is the mass of the hydrogen atom, and 302.018236 is a constant connected with the solution to the Lane-Emden equation. Numerically, this value is approximately (2/e)2 2.85 1030 kg, or 1.43 (2/e)2 M, where
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M=1.9891030 kg is the standard solar mass, As is the 8 3 Planck mass, MPl2.17610 kg, the limit is of the order of MPl /mH2. Electron degeneracy pressure is a quantum-mechanical effect arising from the Pauli Exclusion Principle. Since electrons are fermions, no two electrons can be in the same state, so not all electrons can be in the minimum-energy level. Rather, electrons must occupy a band of energy levels. Compression of the electron gas increases the number of electrons in a given volume and raises the maximum energy level in the occupied band. Therefore, the energy of the electrons will increase upon compression, so pressure must be exerted on the electron gas to compress it. This is the origin of electron degeneracy pressure. In the nonrelativistic case, electron degeneracy pressure gives rise to an equation of state of the form P=K15/3. Solving the hydrostatic equation leads to a model white dwarf which is a polytrope of index 3/2 and therefore has radius inversely proportional to the cube root of its mass, and volume inversely proportional to its mass. As the mass of a model white dwarf increases, the typical energies to which degeneracy pressure forces the electrons are no longer negligible relative to their rest masses.
Figure 7.5 Radius-mass relations for a model white dwarf. The lower curve uses the general pressure law for an ideal Fermi gas, while the upper curve is for a non-relativistic ideal Fermi gas. The vertical line marks the ultra-relativistic limit. The velocities of the electrons approach the speed of light, and special relativity must be taken into account. In the strongly relativistic
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limit, we find that the equation of state takes the form P=K24/3. This will yield a polytrope of index 3, which will have a total mass, M limit say, depending only on K2. For a fully relativistic treatment, the equation of state used will interpolate between the equations P=K15/3 for small and P=K24/3 for large . When this is done, the model radius still decreases with mass, but becomes zero at Mlimit. This is the Chandrasekhar limit. The curves of radius against mass for the non-relativistic and relativistic models are shown in the graph. They are colored blue and green, respectively. e has been set equal to 2. Radius is measured in standard solar radii or kilometers, and mass in standard solar masses. A more accurate value of the limit than that given by this simple model requires adjusting for various factors, including electrostatic interactions between the electrons and nuclei and effects caused by nonzero temperature. Lieb and Yau have given a rigorous derivation of the limit from a relativistic many-particle Schrdinger equation. Applications The core of a star is kept from collapsing by the heat generated by the fusion of nuclei of lighter elements into heavier ones. At various points in a star's life, the nuclei required for this process will be exhausted, and the core will collapse, causing it to become denser and hotter. A critical situation arises when iron accumulates in the core, since iron nuclei are incapable of generating further energy through fusion. If the core becomes sufficiently dense, electron degeneracy pressure will play a significant part in stabilizing it against gravitational collapse. If a main-sequence star is not too massive (less than approximately 8 solar masses), it will eventually shed enough mass to form a white dwarf having mass below the Chandrasekhar limit, which will consist of the former core of the star. For more massive stars, electron degeneracy pressure will not keep the iron core from collapsing to very great density, leading to formation of a neutron star, black hole, or, speculatively, a quark star. (For very massive, low-metallicity stars, it is also possible that instabilities will destroy the star completely.) During the collapse, neutrons are formed by the capture of electrons by protons in the
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process of inverse beta decay, leading to the emission of neutrinos. . The decrease in gravitational potential energy of the collapsing core releases a large amount of energy which is on the order of 1046 joules (100 foes.) Most of this energy is carried away by the emitted neutrinos. This process is believed to be responsible for supernovae of types Ib, Ic, and II. Type Ia supernovae derive their energy from runaway fusion of the nuclei in the interior of a white dwarf. This fate may befall carbon-oxygen white dwarfs that accrete matter from a companion giant star, leading to a steadily increasing mass. It is believed that, as the white dwarf's mass approaches the Chandrasekhar limit, its central density increases, and, as a result of compressional heating, its temperature also increases. This results in an increasing rate of fusion reactions, eventually igniting a thermonuclear flame which causes the supernova. Strong indications of the reliability of Chandrasekhar's formula are: 1. Only one white dwarf with a mass greater than Chandrasekhar's limit has ever been observed. (See below.) 2. The absolute magnitudes of supernovae of Type Ia are all approximately the same; at maximum luminosity, MV is approximately -19.3, with a standard deviation of no more than 0.3. A 1-sigma interval therefore represents a factor of less than 2 in luminosity. This seems to indicate that all type Ia supernovae convert approximately the same amount of mass to energy. 7.5 A type Ia supernova apparently from a supra-limit white dwarf On April 2003, the Supernova Legacy Survey observed a type Ia supernova, designated SNLS-03D3bb, in a galaxy approximately 4 billion light years away. According to a group of astronomers at the University of Toronto and elsewhere, the observations of this supernova are best explained by assuming that it arose from a white dwarf which grew to twice the mass of the Sun before exploding. They believe that the star, dubbed the "Champagne Supernova" by University of Oklahoma astronomer David R. Branch, may have been spinning so fast that centrifugal force allowed it to exceed the limit. Alternatively, the supernova may have resulted from the merger of two white dwarfs, so that the limit was only violated momentarily.
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Nevertheless, they point out that this observation poses a challenge to us. 7.6 Neutron Star
The discovery of Neutron by Chadwick in 1932 led to the speculation by theoreticians that if the matter in the star could be subjected to such high pressure as to force the free electrons into atomic nucleus, the star could become a body composed entirely of neutrons. Walter Baade and Fritz Zwicky suggested that supernova expositions might form neutron stars. At least some pulsers are associated with the remnants of supernovae. Then it was wondered if pulsers are the neutron stars. Neutrons like electrons, obey Paulis principle and can become degenerate if crowded into a sufficiently small volume for a given momentum range, so perhaps a star could collapse into degenerate neutrons if it somehow escaped becoming the white dwarf. The neutron in such condition could not decay into proton and electron, for, by the time the star is that collapsed, the allowable states for electrons would be filled. The structure of the neutron star is analogous to white dwarf except that neutron stars are much smaller. A Neutron star of one solar mass would have the density of 1014 to 1015 g/cm3 comparable to that of atomic nucleus itself, and it will have the radius of 10 Km. As indicated in the Table 7.1 a star of such dimensions would have the natural period of pulsation of less than one ten-thousandth of a second. Since a neutron star could rotate with any period much longer than this, it is believed that pulsars are the rotating neutron stars. Radius (Solar Radii) Period Examples 1000 4 yr Red Supergiants 100 1 month Cephides 10 1 day RR Lyra stars 1 1 hr Sun 0.1 2 min 0.01 4s White dwarf -5 -4 10 10 s Neutron star Table 7.1 Pulsation periods of various stars of One Solar Mass.
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Their exist mass-radius relationship for neutron star, an upper mass limit as well, although the exact theory ids not yet certain, the mass limit for a neutron star is believed to be from 2 to 3 solar masses. The upper mass limit for a neutron star exceeds that for white dwarfs, a star of mass greater than 1.4 solar masses could gravitationally contract to a neutron star, missing the white dwarf configuration. Further, it is also believed that neutron stars are formed in supernova explosions. It seems unlikely that a star of less than 1.4 solar masses can become supernova unless it is first a white dwarf that is a member of a close binary star system. Suppose its mass is very close to the upper limit for the masses of white dwarfs and that the companion star is a giant that is transferring some of its matter to the dwarf. As the transferring material pours into white dwarf, it can raise its mass above the limiting value for stable white dwarf; then there is nothing to stop it from collapsing into a neutron star. 7.7 Black Hole
In 1796 the French mathematician Pierre Simon Laplace speculated about the properties of an object that had so great a gravitational field that a light cannot escape at all. It would bend the light around to stay with the object. Laplaces Corps Obscurs were later reconsidered by modern physicists, armed with the new rigor of general relativity theory. John Wheeler, the Princeton physicist who had become intimately associated with general relativity, has dubbed such objects black holes. Consider the light radiated from the surface of a neutron star. That which emerges normal to the surface flows out radially from the star. That emitted at an angle of say 30 to the normal leaves the star at an angle some what greater than 30to the normal, because of gravitational deflection. Now imagine a more massive star that shrinks to a smaller size and high density than neutron star. As the surface gravity increases, the deflection of light increases too. Eventually, a star reaches a size at which a horizontal beam of light enters a circular orbit. A surface of that radius is called is called Photon sphere. As the star shrinks to a size smaller than the photon sphere, to escape the starlight must flow into a cone about the normal to the surface of half angle as indicated in Figure 7.6 and light at greater angle fall back on star. The angle become smaller and
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smaller as the star collapses until the radius of the star is two third of photon sphere near the star becomes zero, and no light at all can escape. At this point the velocity of escape from the star equals to the velocity of light. As the star contracts further more light and everything else is trapped inside, unable to escape through the surface where the escape velocity is velocity of light. The surface is called event horizon and its radius is called Schwarzschild radius, named for Karl Schwarzschild, who first described the situation a few years after Einstein introduced general relativity. This surface is the boundary of the black hole. All that is inside is hidden forever from us; as the star shrinks through the event horizon it disappears from the universe.
Figure 7.6 The deflection of light from a very dense star. At the radius smaller than the photon sphere to escape light must flow into a cone
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of half angle with respect to the normal n, to the surface. At the event horizon = 0. (35.10) The size of Schwarzschild radius is proportional to the mass of the star. The size of a black hole, as determined by the radius of the event horizon, or Schwarzschild radius, is proportional to the mass through
Where Sun.
For a star of one solar mass, the black hole is about 3 Km in diameter, thus the entire black hole, some 6 Km in diameter is about one third the size of the neutron star. The event horizon of larger and smaller black holes-if they exist-has greater and lesser radii respectively. For example, if earth to become black hole it would have to be compressed to the radius of only 1 cm or about the size of a golf ball. But should black hole exist? For stars of less than about 1.4 solar masses can become white dwarfs. Those with larger mass, we think can exist as neutron star, but there is an upper limit to the mass of neutron stars; we thin the limit is not over three solar masses. We know the tiny fraction of all stars have still greater mass. What becomes of them when they exhaust their store of nuclear fuel? Perhaps they eject part of their mass (as planetary nebula or supernova outburst) so that what is left can contract to a white dwarf or neutron star. But what if they do not? Then we know no other fate for such massive stars then that they become black holes. Thus we are not certain that any star must ever have to become a black hole, but we have good reasons to expect that many massive stars albeit a minority of all stars can end up in that exotic state. How then do we find a black hole, which of course we cannot see? We can detect it by its gravitational effects on other stars (as star collapse into black holes they leave behind their gravitational fields), and this is most easily accomplished in a binary star system.
1. Possible Candidates
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In order to find a black hole we must (a) find a star whose motion showed it to be a member of a binary star system, and so have a companion of mass too high to be a white dwarf or neutron star (b) that, the companion star must not be visible, for a black hole gives no light. But being invisible not enough, for relatively faint star must be unseen next to the light of a brilliant companion therefore, (c) we must have evidence that the unseen star, of mass too high to be a neutron star is also a collapsed object of extremely small size for then our theory predicts that it must be a black hole or least a star on the way to becoming one, Modern space astronomy supports (c) One way to know we have a small object of high gravity (and possibly a black hole) is if matter falling toward or into it is accelerated to high speed. Near the event horizon of a black hole, matter is moving at near the speed of light, internal friction can heat it to very high temperatures-up to 100 million Kelvins or more. Such hot matter emits radiation in the form of X-rays. Modern orbiting X-ray telescopes-especially the Einstein telescope, HEAO 2- can and does reveal such intense source of X-radiation. Thus we require X-ray sources associated with binary stars with invisible companions of high mass. We cannot prove that such a system contains a black hole, but at present we have no other theory for what the invisible massive companion can be if the X-rays are coming from gas heated by falling toward it. Consider one star in such a double star system has evolve to a black hole and that the second star has now evolved to a red giant so large that its outer layer pass through a point of no return between the star and some of its matter falls to the black hole. The mutual revolution of the giant star and black hole cause the material from the former to flow not directly to black hole but to conserve angular momentum it spirals around the black hole and is collected in a flat disk of matter called the accretion disk, In the inner part of the accretion disk the matter is revolving about the black hole so fast that its internal friction heat it upto the temperature where it emits X-rays. In the course of this friction, some material in the accretion disk is given extra momentum, and escape from the double star system and the other material loses momentum and fall into black hole. Yet another way to form an accretion disk in a binary star system is from material ejected from a companion of the black hole as a stellar wind some of the ejected gas will flow close enough to the black hole to be captured by it into the disk. Such is the case of binary system containing first X-ray source discovered in Cygnus198
Cygnus X-1. The variable star as shown in Figure 7.7 is a normal B type star. The spectroscopic observations show it to have an unseen companion of mass near ten times that of the sun. The companion would be a black hole if it ever a small, collapsed object. The X-rays from it strongly suggest that it is, for we have no other explanation for the source of those x-rays than gas heated by an infall toward a tiny massive object. Of course we cannot be certain Cygnus X-1 is a black hole, but many astronomers think that it probably is.
Figure 7.8 An artist's concept of Cygnus X-1 shows hot gas from the giant blue star flowing toward the black hole, forming a bright accretion disk. 2. Properties
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There seems to be much folklore about black holes, many of them are misleading. One idea is that black holes are the monsters that go about sucking things up with their gravity. Actually, the gravitational attraction surrounding the black hole at a large distance is the same as that around other star (or object) of same mass. Even if another star or space ship was to pass one or two solar radii from the black hole. Newtons law gives an excellent account of what would happen to it. But very near to the surface of the black hole the gravitation is so strong that Newtons law break down, For a black hole of mass of the sun light would have to come within 4.5 Km of its center to be trapped. A solar mass black hole, is only 3 Km in radius which is very tiny target. Even collisions between ordinary stars, hundreds of thousands times bigger in diameter are so rare as to be essentially nonexistent. A star would be far, far safer to us as an interloping black hole than it would have been in its former stellar dimensions. Ideas about Black Holes The black holes need not be limited to stellar masses. There has been considerable consideration of the possibilities of vary large amount of gas collecting together and collapsing into black hole in center of globular clusters, galaxies, or even clusters of galaxies. A mass of gas collapsing into a black hole releases more than 100 times as much energy as can be extracted from the same mass through the nuclear fusion. Thus the gravitational collapse of a million solar masses of gas into a black hole at the center of the galaxy could produce prodigious amount of released gravitational potential energy. However, there is a great deal of speculation about such processes which account for the energy of quasars and other phenomenal objects. It may well be that through massive black holes general relativity theory will be found to have profound consequences in modern astrophysics. British theoretical astrophysics Stephen Hawking suggested that the black holes microscopic levels (or less than few solar masses) could have been produced in the big bang at the origin of universe. If it is so, then they would involve quantum mechanics as well as relativity in the most amazing way. We know that all fundamental particles have antiparticles for example electrons and positrons, protons and antiprotons, and so on. Whenever the particle and its antiparticle
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come into contact, they annihilate each other transforming completely into energy. Similarly, pure energy can be converted into pairs of particles an electron and positron, through a pair production and observed regularly in the nuclear physics laboratory. All this is possible because mass and energy are equivalent, but obviously mass cannot be created from nothing - we need energy to do it. Yet, according to quantum theory, it is possible for matter (or energy) to be created from nothing for an exceedingly brief period of time. This is possible because of innate uncertainty in nature, at the microscopic level, of the measures of the physical quantities such as mass and energy. This does not violates the conservation laws, because any matter that come into being almost immediately disappears again spontaneously, so on average mass and energy (combined) is conserved. As per Hawking if a positron and electron come into existence momentarily in the vicinity of a black hole. There is a chance that one or the other will fall into hole and hence not be able to annihilate with its antiparticle, returning the energy it borrowed from the nature. Its antiparticle cannot escape unscathed. Many such positrons and electrons so created near the black holes and escaping from them do annihilate each other, creating energy. Now that energy cannot come from nothing. According to Hawkings theory it must come from black hole itself. Robbing the black hole of energy in this way robs off its mass (E=mc2) so black hole must slowly evaporate through this process of pair production. This process is only important, near very tiny black holes. Solar-mass black hole would evaporate in this way at absolute negligible rate. In fact, the only black holes that would have had time to so evaporate in the age of universe would be those of original mass less than about 10 25g like minor planet. Smaller ones would already be gone because evaporation rate increases with the decrease of mass of black holes, at the end one would go off explosively emitting a final burst of gamma radiation. It is not yet clear about the formation of such mini black holes and their evaporation process. 7.8 Star Clusters
The study of star clusters is very important, because the stars in the single cluster are at about the same distance from the earth; consequently, their luminosities, colours and so on can be compared easily and accurately. Moreover, the stars in the cluster have
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common origin, being formed about same time from same prestellar material. A number of star clusters bears popular names of mythological characters (the Pleiades) the other clusters bears the names of constellations in which they appear (the double cluster of Perseus) 1. Descriptions A cluster that contains a great many stars are said to be rich clusters, poor clusters, on the other hand contains comparatively few stars. Rich clusters are likely to be conspicuous, and their identification as genuine stellar systems is certain. Poor clusters, on the other hand, are much more difficult to pick out against background of the general star field. Most of the clusters that are cataloged contains a high enough density of stars to stand out against the background so that there is virtually no chance of their being accidental superposition of stars at different distances. Even so, it is often difficult or impossible to say which certainty whether a given individual star is a member of a cluster or not. In general a few of the stars studied as a cluster members are actually stars in background or foreground. 2. Globular Clusters About hundred globular clusters are known some of them in a halo and nucleus of our Galaxy. They all are very far from the sun; some are found at the distance of 60,000 L.Y. or more from galactic plane. Few of them bright enough to be seen with the naked eye, they appear to be faint, fuzzy stars. One of the most famous naked eye globule clusters is M13 in the constellation Hercules. A small telescope reveals the brightest star while a large telescope shows them to be beautiful, globe shaped system of stars. A good photograph of typical globular cluster shows it to be nearly circular symmetrical systems of stars with the highest concentration of stars near its own center. Most of the stars in the central regions of the clusters are not resolved as individual points of light but appears as nebulous glow. Photograph of globular clusters shows that the brightest stars are red. These stars are two or three magnitude brighter than the RR-Lyrae variable stars that are almost always found in the globular clusters Since RR-Lyrae stars average about
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absolute magnitude 0 to +1, the brightest star must be red giants. The other kinds of variables sometimes found in globular clusters include type II Cepheids and RV Tauri stars. One cluster (NGC 7078) contains a planetary nebula. Distances to the globular clusters are calculated from the apparent magnitudes of RR Lyrae stars they contain. From angular sizes their actual linear diameter are found to be from 20 to 100 PC or more. In one of the nearest globular cluster more than 30,000 stars have been counted. Most of the clusters contain hundreds of thousands of member stars. The combined light from all these stars gives a globular cluster an absolute magnitude in the range -5 to -10. The average density of globular cluster is about 0.4 stars per cubic parsec. In a dense center of globular cluster the star density may be as high as 100 or 1000 per cubic parsec. The motion of globular clusters reveals that they are high velocity objects that do not partake of general galactic rotation. They are believed to revolve about the nucleus of the galaxy on the orbits of high eccentricity and high inclination to the galactic plane. A typical cluster probably has the period of revolution of the order of 108 years. 3. Open Clusters They appear comparatively loose and open. They contain far fewer stars than globular clusters and show little or no strong concentration of stars towards their own centers. Although open clusters are usually more or less round in appearance they lack high degree of spherical symmetry. Some open clusters are usually fully resolved, even in its center. They are found in the disk of the galaxy often associated with interstellar matter. Due to their locations they are sometimes called galactic clusters. They are low velocity objects and belong to stellar population I they are presumed to be originated near the spiral arms. Over 1000 open clusters have been identified till 1982. Several open clusters are visible to unaided eye. Most famous among them is Pleiades that appears as a group of six stars as shown in Figure 7.8 Typical open cluster contain several dozen to several hundred member stars, although few such as M67 contain more than thousand stars. Open clusters usually have the diameter of less than 10 pc. Bright supergiants stars of high luminosity in some open clusters may cause them to outshine globular clusters. The RR Lyrae stars are never found in open clusters but other kinds of variable stars, such as type I Cepheids, are some times present.
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Figure 7.9 The Pleiades, an open cluster of stars in the constellation of Taurus. 4. Associations It is known for more than 50 years that most luminous main sequence stars of spectral types O and B are not distributed at random in the sky but tends to be grouped into associations, lying along spiral arms of our Galaxy. Soviet astronomer V. A. Ambartsumian pointed out that they must be very young group of stars. Because the stars of association lie in the galactic plane and are spread over tens of parsecs, each revolves about the galactic center with a slightly different orbital speed. There are two kinds of associations those containing O and B stars called O-associations and the other containing T Tauri stars are called T- associations. About 70 percent associations have been catalogued. The characteristics of star clusters are shown in Table-7.2.
Globular Clusters in 125 Open Clusters 1055 Associations 70
Halo and Nuclear Disk (and spiral Spiral Arm bulge arms) Diameter (pc) 20 to 100 <10 30 to 200 Mass (solar masses) 104 to 105 102 to 103 102 to 103? 4 5 3 Number of stars 10 to 10 50 to 10 10 to 100? Colour of the brightest Red Red or Blue Blue star
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Integrated absolute -5 to -10 0 to - 10 visual magnitude of cluster Density of stars (solar 0.5 to 1000 0.1 to 10 masses per parsec) Examples Hercules Cluster Hyades, Pleiades (M13)
Table-7.2.Characteristics of Star Clusters. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretch'd in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. William Wordsworth, 'I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud' (also known as 'The Daffodils'), 1804.
Summery
1. The first white dwarf was discovered as the companion to Sirius. 2. The volume to which a star can be compressed before the electron become degenerate depends on amount of the gravitational potential energy that can be released by the collapsing star, which in turn depends on the mass. 3. Size of white dwarf, therefore, depends on its mass- the more massive the white dwarf, the smaller its size. 4. Novae are an existing star that suddenly emits an outburst of light. 5. Supernova are the more spectacular of the cataclysm of nature is the. 6. The outflow from supernovae and the stellar wind of large stars play an important part in shaping the interstellar medium.
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electron-degenerate matter-a dense form of matter which consists of nuclei immersed in a gas of electrons. 8. Only one white dwarf with a mass greater than Chandrasekhar's limit has ever been observed. 9. Structure of the neutron star is analogous to white dwarf except that neutron stars are much smaller. 10. The mass limit for a neutron star is believed to be from 2 to 3 solar masses. 11. The size of Schwarzschild radius is proportional to the mass of the star. 12. If earth to become black hole it would have to be compressed to the radius of only 1 cm or about the size of a golf ball. 13. For a black hole of mass of the sun light would have to come within 4.5 Km of its center to be trapped. 14. A solar mass black hole, is only 3 Km in radius which is very tiny target 15. The stars in the cluster have common origin, being formed about same time from same prestellar material.
Exercises
Fill in the blanks
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
The first white dwarf was discovered as the companion to _______. The white dwarf has a mean density more than hundred thousand times that of __________ and sixth of the million times that of ____________. The size of white dwarf, therefore, depends on its __________. _________Solar mass is the upper limit to the mass of white dwarf. White dwarfs can have no ______________. Recent studies indicate that at least some white dwarfs probably have cores in which the matter has _____________. Novae remain bright for only __________ or weeks and then gradually fade.
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8 9 10 11
Supernovae are so bright that they may briefly outshine the star's entire home ______________. No nonrotating white dwarf can be ___________ than the Chandrasekhar limit. The structure of the neutron star is analogous to white dwarf except that neutron stars are much _____________. ___________ are the object that had so great a gravitational field that a light cannot escape at all
Short questions with answer Q1. When a star can release gravitational potential energy? Ans. star must exhaust its store of nuclear energy only then it can contract and release gravitational potential energy. Q2. What is the mean density of the white dwarf? Ans. The white dwarf has a mean density more than hundred thousand times that of the sun and sixth of the million times that of water. Some white dwarfs have much higher mean densities, and many have central densities in excess of 107 times that of water. A teaspoon full of such material would weigh nearly 50 tons. Q3. Compression of a star is dependent on? Ans. Volume to which a star can be compressed before the electron become degenerate depends on amount of the gravitational potential energy that can be released by the collapsing star, which in turn depends on the mass. Q4. What do we learn from analysis by Chandrasekhar? Ans. The analysis by Chandrasekhar shows that white dwarfs of masses successively greater than the suns are successively smaller than one percent of its radius, until a mass of 1.4 solar masses is reached, at which point the electrons do not become degenerate and hydrostatic equilibrium cannot be achieved. Q5. What is the internal composition of white dwarf? Ans. The most probable internal composition of white dwarf is a mixture of carbon and oxygen, the principal product of hydrogen burning. Recent studies indicate that at least some white dwarfs probably have cores in which the matter has crystallized. Q6. What is the difference between a star and white dwarf?
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Ans. The electron-degenerate matter inside a white dwarf is no longer plasma, even though stars are generally referred to as being spheres of plasma. Q7. What Novae? What is their period of their optical visibility? Ans. Novae are an existing star that suddenly emits an outburst of light. Novae remain bright for only few days or weeks and then gradually fade. They seldom remain visible to the unaided eyes for more than few months. Q8. When a star can release gravitational potential energy? Ans. Supernova is most spectacular cataclysm of the nature. In contrast to an ordinary nova, it increases in luminosity and paltry few thousands or at most tens of thousands of times. Q9. What is the maximum absolute magnitude reached by Supernova? Name some of the most famous Supernova? Ans. At maximum light, supernova reaches absolute magnitude -14 to -18 or probably even -20. The three most famous supernovae have been observed during last ten centuries in our Galaxy they are (1) The Supernova of 1054 in Taurus (described in Chinese annals) (2) Tychos star of 1572 in constellation Cassiopeia, and (3) the supernova of 1604 in Serpens, described by both Kepler and Galileo Q10. What is the rate of occurrence of the Supernova? What happens to the outflow of the energy from the Supernova? Ans. In typical galaxy supernovae occur at the rate of one every 100 years. The outflow from supernovae and the stellar wind of large stars play an important part in shaping the interstellar medium. Q11. What is the state of matter in the neutron star? Ans. In a neutron star the matter is in a state known as neutrondegenerate matter, with a more exotic form of degenerate matter Q12. What is the structure of the neutron star? Ans. The structure of the neutron star is analogous to white dwarf except that neutron stars are much smaller. A Neutron star of one solar mass would have the density of 1014 to 1015 g/cm3 comparable to that of atomic nucleus itself, and it will have the radius of 10 Km. Q13. Why the study of star clusters important? Ans. The study of star clusters is very important, because the stars in the single cluster are at about the same distance from the
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earth; consequently, their luminosities, colors and so on can be compared easily and accurately. Q14. How we can differentiate star clusters? What are its different types? Ans. Cluster that contains a great many stars are said to be rich clusters, poor clusters, on the other hand contains comparatively few stars. They are further classified into: The Globular Clusters those are about hundred in number in a halo and nucleus of our Galaxy, and the Open Clusters which appear comparatively loose and open. They contain far fewer stars than globular clusters and show little or no strong concentration of stars towards their own centers. Q15What are the types of associations? Ans. There are two kinds of associations those containing O and B stars called O-associations and the other containing T Tauri stars are called T- associations. Study Questions Q1. What is the white dwarf? When they were discovered? Q2. What is Structure of White Dwarf? Q3. What are Novae? Q4. What are Supernovae? Discuss its light curve? Q5. What is Chandrasekhar limit? Give its applications? Q6. How you can establish the reliability of Chandrasekhar's formula? Q7. What is supra-limit white dwarf? Q8. What is Neutron Star? What is the relation of its mass with radius? Q9. What is Black Hole? How it is formed? Q10. What are the possible candidates for the black hole? Q11. What are the Properties of black hole? Q12. What is different idea about the black hole? Q13. Write the note on: Schwarzschild radius Globular Clusters Open Clusters Associations
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Galaxies
Unit IV
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Chapter 8
Edwin Powell Hubble (November 20, 1889 September 28, 1953) was an American astronome r who profoundly changed our understanding of the universe by demonstrating the existence of galaxies other than our own, the Milky Way. He also discovered that the degree of "Doppler shift" (specifically "redshift") observed in the light spectra from other galaxies increased in proportion to a particular galaxy's distance from Earth. This relationship became known as Hubble's law, and helped established.
Galaxies
A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy derives from the Greek term for our own galaxy, galaxias (), or kyklos galaktikos, meaning "milky circle" for its appearance in the sky. In Greek mythology, Zeus places his son born by a mortal woman, the infant Heracles, on Hera's breast while she is asleep so that the baby will drink her divine milk and will thus become immortal. Hera wakes up while breastfeeding and then realize she is nursing an unknown baby: she pushes the baby away and a jet of her milk sprays the night sky, producing the faint band of light known as the Milky Way. In the astronomical literature, the capitalized word 'Galaxy' is used to refer to our galaxy, the Milky Way, to distinguish it from the billions of other galaxies. The term Milky Way first appeared in the English language in a following poem by Chaucer.
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"See yonder, lo, the Galaxy Which men clepeth the Milky Wey, For hit is whyt." Geoffrey Chaucer The House of Fame, c. 1380.[
Figure 8.1 NGC 4414, a typical spiral galaxy in the constellation Coma Berenices, is about 17,000 parsecs in diameter and approximately 20 million parsecs distant.
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The Arabian astronomer, Alhazen (9651037 A.D.), made the first attempt at observing and measuring the Milky Way's parallax, and he thus "determined that because the Milky Way had no parallax, it was very remote from the earth and did not belong to the atmosphere." The Persian astronomer, Ab Rayhn al-Brn (9731048), proposed the Milky Way galaxy to be "a collection of countless fragments of the nature of nebulous stars." IbnBajjah ("Avempace", d. 1138) proposed that the Milky Way was made up of many stars which almost touched one another and appeared to be a continuous image due to the effect of refraction from sublunary material. Ibn Qayyim AlJawziyya (12921350) proposed the Milky Way galaxy to be "a myriad of tiny stars packed together in the sphere of the fixed stars". Actual proof of the Milky Way consisting of many stars came in 1610 when Galileo Galilei used a telescope to study the Milky Way and discovered that it is composed of a huge number of faint stars. In 1750 Thomas Wright, in his An original theory or new hypothesis of the Universe, speculated (correctly) that the galaxy might be a rotating body of a huge number of stars held together by gravitational forces, akin to the solar system but on a much larger scale. The resulting disk of stars can be seen as a band on the sky from our perspective inside the disk. In a treatise in 1755, Immanuel Kant elaborated on Wright's idea about the structure of the Milky Way and introduced the term Island Universe for these distant nebulae.
Figure 8.2 Galactic Center of Milky Way and a meteor A very significant contribution to our knowledge of the galaxies was provides by the work of William Herschel and his only son, John (1792-1871). William surveyed the northern sky by scanning it visually with the worlds first large reflecting telescope. Elder Herschel himself discovered thousands of nebulae (plural of nebula) that literally means clouds. Faint star clusters glowing gas clouds, dust clouds reflecting starlight, and galaxies all appear as joint unresolved
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luminous patches when viewed visually with the telescopes of only moderate size, Since the true nature of these objects were not known to early observers , all of them were called nebulae. Today we usually reserve the word nebula for the true gas or dust clouds, but some astronomers still refer to galaxies as nebulae or extragalactic nebulae and regarded them as galaxies like Milky Way system; he was known to remark once that he had discovered more than 1500 universes William Herschel constructed his catalog of deep sky objects, he used the name spiral nebula for certain objects such as M31. These would later be recognized as immense conglomerations of stars, when the true distance to these objects began to be appreciated, and they would be termed island universes. However, the word Universe was understood to mean the entirety of existence, so this expression fell into disuse and the objects instead became known as galaxies The first attempt to describe the shape of the Milky Way and the position of the Sun in it was carried out by William Herschel in 1785 by carefully counting the number of stars in different regions of the sky. He produced a diagram of the shape of the galaxy with the solar system close to the center. Using a refined approach, Kapteyn in 1920 arrived at the picture of a small (diameter about 15 kiloparsecs) ellipsoid galaxy with the Sun close to the center. A different method by Harlow Shapley based on the cataloguing of globular clusters led to a radically different picture: a flat disk with diameter approximately 70 kiloparsecs and the Sun far from the center. Both analyses failed to take into account the absorption of light by interstellar dust present in the galactic plane, but after Robert Julius Trumpler quantified this effect in 1930 by studying open clusters, the present picture of our galaxy, the Milky Way, emerged.
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Figure 8.3 The shape of the Milky Way as deduced from star counts by William Herschel in 1785; the solar system was assumed to be near the center.
Figure 8.4 Sketch of the Whirlpool Galaxy by Lord Rosse in 1845 In 1054, the creation of the Crab Nebula resulting from the SN 1054 supernova was observed by Chinese, Japanese and Arab/Persian astronomers. The Crab Nebula itself was observed centuries later by John Bevis in 1731, followed by Charles Messier in 1758 and then by the Earl of Rosse in the 1840s. Toward the end of the 18th century, Charles Messier compiled a catalog containing the 109 brightest nebulae (celestial objects with a nebulous appearance), later followed by a larger catalog of 5,000 nebulae assembled by William Herschel. In 1845, Lord Rosse constructed a new telescope and was able to distinguish between
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elliptical and spiral nebulae. He also managed to make out individual point sources in some of these nebulae, lending credence to Kant's earlier conjecture. In 1917, Heber Curtis had observed a nova S Andromeda within the "Great Andromeda Nebula" (Messier object M31). Searching the photographic record, he found 11 more novae. Curtis noticed that these novae were, on average, 10 magnitudes fainter than those that occurred within our galaxy. As a result he was able to come up with a distance estimate of 150,000 parsecs. He became a proponent of the so-called "island universes" hypothesis, which holds that spiral nebulae are actually independent galaxies. Typical galaxies range from dwarfs with as few as ten million (107) stars up to giants with one trillion (1012) stars, all orbiting the galaxy's center of mass. Galaxies can also contain many multiple star systems, star clusters, and various interstellar clouds. The Sun is one of the stars in the Milky Way galaxy; the Solar System includes the Earth and all the other objects that orbit the Sun.
Figure 8.5 Photograph of the "Great Andromeda Nebula" from 1899, later identified as the Andromeda Galaxy In 1920 the so-called Great Debate took place between Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis, concerning the nature of the Milky Way, spiral nebulae, and the dimensions of the Universe. To support his claim that the Great Andromeda Nebula was an external galaxy, Curtis noted the appearance of dark lanes resembling the dust clouds in the Milky Way, as well as the significant Doppler shift.
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The matter was conclusively settled in the early 1920s. In 1922, astronomer Ernst pik gave a distance determination which supported the theory that the Andromeda Nebula is indeed a distant extra-galactic object. Using the new 100 inch Mt. Wilson telescope, Edwin Hubble was able to resolve the outer parts of some spiral nebulae as collections of individual stars and identified some Cepheid variables, thus allowing him to estimate the distance to the nebulae: they were far too distant to be part of the Milky Way.
1. Elliptical galaxy
The elliptical galaxies are spherical ellipsoidal system that is thought to consist almost entirely of old stars; they contain no trace of spiral arms. They are far more numerous than spirals. The elliptical galaxies resemble the nucleus and halo components of spiral galaxies. Although dust and conspicuous emission nebulae are not easily observed in elliptical galaxies some of them show evidence of sparse interstellar gas in their spectra. I the large nearby ones, many globular clusters can be identified. These galaxies show various degree of flattening, ranging from system that are approximately spherical to those that approach the flatness of spirals (Figure 8.6). The distribution of light in a typical elliptical galaxy shows that while it has many stars concentrated toward its center, a sparse scattering of stars extends for very great distances and merges imperceptibly into the void of intergalactic space. It is for this reason it is nearly impossible to define total size of an elliptical galaxy. The elliptical galaxies are not disk shaped this very fact show that they are not rotating rapidly. It is hypothesized that they are systems formed from pregalaxian material that had little angular momentum per unit mass- that is, their original material has low net rotation consequently, as such a cloud of primeval material contracted it did not flatten into a disk, and the density of material was high enough that it completely
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condensed into stars. Elliptical galaxies have a much greater range in size, mass and luminosity than do the spirals. The rare giant elliptical for example M87 (Figure 8.7) are more luminous than any known spirals, the brightest elliptical in some rich clusters have absolute magnitude that are brighter than -23 that is more than 1012 times the luminosity of the sun (for example, NGC 4886, in coma cluster of galaxies). The mass to light ratio for giant ellipticals is between 20 and 100. Recent Studies by D Jenner shows that some of these galaxies have masses of about 1023 times that of the sun. The diameter of these large galaxies are difficult to define, they extend over at least several hundred thousand light years. These galaxies range from giants to dwarfs. An example is Leo II systems (Figure 8.8) in which there are few bright stars in this galaxy and even its central region is transparent. The total numbers of stars are at least several millions. The absolute magnitude of Leo II system is 10, its luminosity is about one million times that of the sun. It is so near to us (about 750,000 L.Y.) that its diameter (abut 500 L.Y.) as limited by tidal force exerted on it by our Galaxy. Between Giant and dwarf elliptical galaxies are systems like M 32 and NGC 205. Many elliptical galaxies are believed to form due to the interaction of galaxies, resulting in a collision and merger. They can grow to enormous sizes (compared to spiral galaxies, for example), and giant elliptical galaxies are often found near the core of large galaxy clusters. Starburst galaxies are the result of such a galactic collision that can result in the formation of an elliptical galaxy.
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Figure 8.7 NGC 4486 (M87) giant elliptical galaxy in Virgo. Note the many globular clusters in galaxy.
2. Spiral Galaxies
A spiral galaxy consists of a nucleus, a disk, a halo and the spiral arm. Our own Galaxy and M31 are typical example of spiral galaxies. The interstellar material is usually observed in the arm of spiral galaxies. Bright emission nebulae are present,
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and the absorption of light by dust is also apparent especially in these systems turn almost edge on to our line of sight (Figure 8.9). The spiral arm contains the young stars that include luminous supergiants. These bright stars and the emission nebulae make the arm of spirals stand out like the arm of a fourth- of -July pinwheel. The individual inter-arm stars are usually not observable at all, although their collective light may be appreciable as uniform glow. Open star clusters can be seen in the arms nearer spirals and globular clusters are often visible in their halos in M31, for example, more than 200 globular clusters have been identified. Spiral galaxies contain both young and old stars. Some of the famous spirals are as shown M51 and M33 (Figure 8.10 & 8.11) are seen near face on, NGC4565 (Figure 8.9) is nearly edge on. Note the absorbing line of interstellar dust in NGC 5141(M51) - a thin slab in the central plane of disk which is silhouetted against the nucleus, M81 (Figure 8.12), like M31 (Figure 8.13) is viewed obliquely.
Figure 8.9 NGC 4565 a spiral galaxy in Coma Berenices seen edge on.
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Figure 8.10 The Sc galaxy NGC 5194 (M51) and its irregular companion NGC 5195.
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Figure 8.13 The Andromeda Galaxy, M31, A large minority of spiral galaxies display bars running through nuclei; the spiral arms of such a system usually begin from end of the bar, rather than winding out directly from the nucleus. These are called barred spirals. A famous example is NGC 1300 (Figure 8.14). The bar in the barred spirals is in a sense a straight portion of spiral arm and sometimes contains interstellar matter and young stars.
Figure 8.14 NGC 1300, barred spiral galaxy in Eridanus. Studies of the rotation of some barred spirals show that their inner parts are rotating approximately as solid wheels. In the absence of differential shearing rotation the straight bar even persist rather than winding up; the detailed structures and dynamics of barred spirals are not yet thoroughly understood. In both normal and barred spirals we observe a gradual transition of morphological types. At one extreme the nucleus is
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large and luminous, the arms are small and tightly coiled and bright emission nebulae and supergiants stars are inconspicuous. At the other extreme are spirals in which nuclei are small- almost lacking and the arms are loosely wound, or even wide open. In these later galaxies, there is high degree of resolution of arms into the luminous stars, star clusters, and emission nebulae. Our Galaxy and M31 are both intermediate between these two extremes. Photographs of these spiral galaxies illustrating their transition of types are shown in (Figure 8.15 & Figure 8.16). All spirals and barred spirals rotate in same sense that their arm trail. The diameter of spiral galaxies range from about 20,000 to 100,000 L.Y, the disk halos extends to far greater diameters. Their masses are estimated to range from 109 to 1012 times the mass of the sun. Mass to light ratio of the inner part of the spiral galaxies is between 1 and 20. The absolute magnitude of most spirals falls in the range -16 to -21.
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Figure 8.17 The Sombrero Galaxy, an example of an unbarred spiral galaxy. Spiral galaxies consist of a rotating disk of stars and interstellar medium, along with a central bulge of generally older stars. Extending outward from the bulge are relatively bright arms. In the Hubble classification scheme, spiral galaxies are listed as type S, followed by a letter (a, b, or c) that indicates the degree of tightness of the spiral arms and the size of the central bulge. An Sa galaxy has tightly wound, poorly defined arms and possesses a relatively large core region. At the other extreme,
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a Sc galaxy has open, well-defined arms and a small core region. In spiral galaxies, the spiral arms do have the shape of approximate logarithmic spirals, a pattern that can be theoretically shown to result from a disturbance in a uniformly rotating mass of stars. Like the stars, the spiral arms also rotate around the center, but they do so with constant angular velocity. That means that stars pass in and out of spiral arms, with stars near the galactic core orbiting faster than the arms are moving while stars near the outer parts of the galaxy typically orbit more slowly than the arms. The spiral arms are thought to be areas of high density matter, or "density waves". As stars move through an arm, the space velocity of each stellar system is modified by the gravitational force of the higher density. (The velocity returns to normal after the stars depart on the other side of the arm.) This effect is akin to a "wave" of slowdowns moving along a highway full of moving cars. The arms are visible because the high density facilitates star formation, and therefore they harbor many bright and young stars. A majority of spiral galaxies have a linear, bar-shaped band of stars that extends outward to either side of the core, and then merges into the spiral arm structure. In the Hubble classification scheme, these are designated by an SB, followed by a lowercase letter (a, b or c) that indicates the form of the spiral arms (in the same manner as the categorization of normal spiral galaxies). Bars are thought to be temporary structures that can occur as a result of a density wave radiating outward from the core, or else due to a tidal interaction with another galaxy. Many barred spiral galaxies are active, possibly as a result of gas being channeled into the core along the arms. Our own galaxy is a large disk-shaped barred-spiral galaxy about 30 kiloparsecs in diameter and a kiloparsec in thickness. It contains about two hundred billion (21011) stars and has a total mass of about six hundred billion (61011) times the mass of the Sun.
4. Irregular Galaxies
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A few percent of the brightest appearing galaxies in the northern sky are the irregular galaxies; these galaxies so no trace of circular or rotational symmetry but have an irregular or chaotic appearance. They are divided into two groups Irr I galaxies, consist of the objects showing high resolution into O and B stars and emission nebulae. The best known examples are the large and small clouds of Magellan (Figure 8.18), our nearest galaxian neighbor. There are many star clusters in these galaxies along with variable stars, supergiants and gaseous nebulae. They contain both old and young stars. The lack of conspicuous dust clouds is common in this first kind of irregular galaxy. The second irregular type IrrII galaxies resemble IrrI type objects in their lack of symmetry. These objects display no resolution into stars or clusters, but are completely amorphous in texture. Their spectra are continuous with absorption lines and resemble the spectra of type A5 stars, showing that the stars in these galaxies are not luminous enough to be resolved. The I rrII galaxies generally also show conspicuous dark lines of absorbing interstellar dust examples are M82 (Figure 8.19) and the companion to the spiral galaxy M51 (Figure 8.20).
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Figure 8.20 The Sc galaxy NGC 5194 (M51) and its irregular companion NGC 5195
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Figure 8.21 Types of galaxies according to the Hubble classification scheme. An E indicates a type of elliptical galaxy; an S is a spiral; and SB is a barred-spiral galaxy The ellipticals are classified according to their degree of flattening or ellipticity. Hubble denoted the spherical galaxies by E0 and most highly flattened by E7. The classes E1, E2, -------- E6 are used for galaxies of intermediate ellipticity with each of the number 0 to 7 that describes the flattening of the galaxies is defined in the terms of the major and minor axes of the images of the galaxies, a & b respectively by 10(a-b)/a. Hubble classification of the elliptical galaxies are based on appearance of their images and not upon their true shapes. An E7 galaxy for example, must really be a relatively flat elliptical galaxy seen nearly edge on, but an E0 galaxy could be one of any degree of ellipticity seen face on. A statistical analysis of the number of galaxies of various apparent flattening indicates that if the elliptical galaxies are oblate(like pumpkin) and not prolate (like a football) then all degree of real flattening are about equally represented. Hubble classified the normal spirals as S and the barred spirals as SB. Lower case letters a, b and c are added to denote the extend of nucleus and the tightness through which the spiral arms are called For example, Sa and SBa galaxies are spirals and barred spirals in which the nuclei are large and arms tightly wound. Sc and SBc are the spirals of opposite extreme. Our Galaxy and M31 are classed as Sb. In rich clusters, galaxies are observed which have the disk shape of spiral but no trace of spiral arm. Hubble classified these galaxies of the type intermediate between spirals and ellipticals and named them S0. Hubble classification scheme for all but irregular galaxies is
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illustrated in Figure 8.21 in which the morphological form are sketched and labeled and with the three principal sequences joined at S0. The Hubble classification scheme has been modified and expanded since his time to give a more complete description of galaxies. There are also some of the unusual galaxies as defined below.
Peculiar galaxies are galactic formations that develop unusual properties due to tidal interactions with other galaxies. An example of this is the ring galaxy, which possesses a ring-like structure of stars and interstellar medium surrounding a bare core. A ring galaxy is thought to occur when a smaller galaxy passes through the core of a spiral galaxy. Such an event may have affected the Andromeda Galaxy, as it displays a multi-ring-like structure when viewed in infrared radiation. A lenticular galaxy is an intermediate form that has properties of both elliptical and spiral galaxies. These are categorized as Hubble type S0, and they possess ill-defined spiral arms with an elliptical halo of stars. (Barred lenticular galaxies receive Hubble classification SB0.)
Dwarf galaxy
Despite the prominence of large elliptical and spiral galaxies, most galaxies in the universe appear to be dwarf galaxies. These tiny galaxies are about one hundredth the size of the Milky Way, containing only a few billion stars. Ultra-compact dwarf galaxies have recently been discovered that are only 100 parsecs across. Many dwarf galaxies may orbit a single larger galaxy; the Milky Way has at least a dozen such satellites, with an estimated 300500 yet to be discovered. Dwarf galaxies may also be classified as elliptical, spiral, or irregular. Since small dwarf ellipticals bear little resemblance to large ellipticals, they are often called dwarf spheroidal galaxies instead. A study of 27 Milky Way neighbors found that dwarf galaxies
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were all approximately 10 million solar masses, regardless of whether they have thousands or millions of stars. This has led to the suggestion that galaxies are largely formed by dark matter, and that the minimum size may indicate a form of warm dark matter incapable of gravitational coalescence on a smaller scale.
Interacting galaxy
The average separation between galaxies within a cluster is a little over an order of magnitude larger than their diameter. Hence interactions between these galaxies are relatively frequent, and play an important role in their evolution. Near misses between galaxies result in warping distortions due to tidal interactions, and may cause some exchange of gas and dust.
Figure 8.24 The Antennae Galaxies are undergoing a collision that will result in their eventual merger. Collisions occur when two galaxies pass directly through each other and have sufficient relative momentum not to merge. The stars within these interacting galaxies will typically pass straight through without colliding. However, the gas and dust within the two forms will interact. This can trigger bursts of star formation as the interstellar medium becomes disrupted and compressed. A collision can severely distort the shape of one or both galaxies, forming bars, rings or tail-like structures. At the extreme of interactions are galactic mergers. In this
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case the relative momentum of the two galaxies is insufficient to allow the galaxies to pass through each other. Instead, they gradually merge together to form a single, larger galaxy. Mergers can result in significant changes to morphology, as compared to the original galaxies. In the case where one of the galaxies is much more massive, however, the result is known as cannibalism. In this case the larger galaxy will remain relatively undisturbed by the merger, while the smaller galaxy is torn apart. The Milky Way galaxy is currently in the process of cannibalizing the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy and the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy.
Starburst galaxy
Figure 8.25 M82, the archetype starburst galaxy, has experienced a 10-fold increase in star formation rate as compared to a "normal" galaxy. Stars are created within galaxies from a reserve of cold gas that forms into giant molecular clouds. Some galaxies have been observed to form stars at an exceptional rate, known as a starburst. Should they continue to do so, however, they would consume their reserve of gas in a time frame lower than the lifespan of the galaxy. Hence starburst activity usually lasts for only about ten million years, a relatively brief period in the history of a galaxy. Starburst galaxies were more common during the early history of the universe, and, at present, still contribute an estimated 15% to the total star production rate. Starburst galaxies are characterized by dusty concentrations of gas and the appearance of newly formed stars, including massive stars that ionize the surrounding clouds to create H II regions. These
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massive stars also produce supernova explosions, resulting in expanding remnants that interact powerfully with the surrounding gas. These outbursts trigger a chain reaction of star building that spreads throughout the gaseous region. Only when the available gas is nearly consumed or dispersed does the starburst activity come to an end. Starbursts are often associated with merging or interacting galaxies. The prototype example of such a starburst-forming interaction is M82, which experienced a close encounter with the larger M81. Irregular galaxies often exhibit spaced knots of starburst activity.
Figure 8.26 A jet of particles is being emitted from the core of the elliptical radio galaxy M87. Active galaxies that emit high-energy radiation in the form of x-rays are classified as Seyfert galaxies or quasars, depending on the
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luminosity. Blazars are believed to be an active galaxy with a relativistic jet that is pointed in the direction of the Earth. A radio galaxy emits radio frequencies from relativistic jets. A unified model of these types of active galaxies explains their differences based on the viewing angle of the observer. Possibly related to active galactic nuclei (as well as starburst regions) are low-ionization nuclear emission-line regions (LINERs). The emission from LINER-type galaxies is dominated by weakly ionized elements. Approximately one-third of nearby galaxies are classified as containing LINER nuclei. Our Galaxy has a nucleus that displays many properties similar to that of a quasar, like synchrotron radiations at all wavelengths, infrared radiation and gas clouds moving outward. These phenomenons are on very small scale in our Galaxy when compared with quasars. However, there are galaxies where nuclear activity seems to be intermediate and they may provide a link between normal galaxies and quasars. In 1944, Carl Seyfert described about dozen spiral galaxies with very unusual spectra. The spectrum of the light from the nucleus of a Seyfert galaxy have a strong broad emission lines, which indicates the presence of very hot gas in a small central region . The broad width of the lines shows that the gas is rapidly expanding with the speeds of upto thousands of Km/s. Some of the Seyfert galaxies are also strong radio sources and all have emission of infrared emission from their nuclei. The visual luminosities of these galaxies are usually about normal for spirals, but when account is taken of the infrared energy they emit, their total luminosities are found to be 100 or so times normal. Some are known X-ray source as well. The unusual radiations from these galaxies sometimes come from several different regions of its nuclei. Some of them like NGC 4151 (Figure 8.27) show the variation in brightness of their nuclei over period of only few months, which is the evidence that the radiation come from small regions at most few light months across. It is possible that 1 or 2 percent of all spiral galaxies have active nuclei.
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Besides Seyfert galaxies the other galaxies other galaxies show evidence of explosive ejection of matter from the nucleus of M82 (Figure 8.28) with a complex filament surrounding it. The spectra of the filament show Doppler shift suggesting that expansion of upto 1000 Km/s. If they were ejected from the nucleus of M82, they would have their present location in about 2 x 106 years, similar interesting galaxy is M87. It is a strong radio source; short exposures of it show a luminous jet directed away from its nucleus and a faint hint of second radial jet in opposite direction. Both the nucleus and brighter jet emit synchrotron radiation, indicating magnetic fields and a source of relativistic electrons. It is also a strong source of x-rays implying a hot gas throughout the entire galaxy and out into the halo. The observation suggests that a halo contains an enormous amount of dark mass perhaps more than 1019 solar mass. Finally, the optical spectrum of M87 show very broad lines indicating very high velocities of stars there, as though they were being accelerated by a very dense, massive core. Between quasars and galaxies like M82 and M87 or Seyfert galaxies there is another class called N-galaxies having small nuclei that are very bright compared with the main part of these galaxies appear as stellar images superposed on joint wispy or nebulous backgrounds. Their bright nuclei indicate that enormous amount of energy being emitted from those regions.
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It must provide power upto 1047 ergs/s equivalent to nearly 100 million million times the luminosity of the sun. It must in some cases account for the variation in the total radiated power by as much as a factor of two or more and over time scales of years or months or in some cased only days. In the objects that vary in luminosity, the powerhouse must be compact enough that light can travel across it in a time less than that of its variations. It must be able to eject relativistic electrons in directed jets and in sufficient numbers to provide synchrotron radiation as intense as the total visible energy emitted by bright galaxy. It must possess powerful magnetism and the energy in the magnetic fields must be comparable to the total nuclear energy available in all of the stars in a large galaxy. At least in M87 and probably in many galaxies it must be able to accelerate the stars to high velocities in central regions of the galaxy in which they reside. In some quasars it must be able to eject clouds of matter containing relativistic electrons every year or more often.
Perhaps no one kind of power plant accounts for all kind of active galactic nuclei, but what they all have in common points to a small compact source of enormous energy, evidently buried in the nucleus
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of the galaxy. Many models have been suggested, including stellar collisions in dense galactic cores, superstars, extraordinary powerful supernovae, and others. But most of the theoreticians lean to the theory that all or most active galactic nuclei derives their energy from the release of potential energy in the gravitational collapse of millions or thousands of millions of solar masses. This matter, falling together and accelerating as it goes so, would reach great speeds and the heat to millions of Kelvin. Ultimately, it is believed such collapsing matter must increase the density until it has fallen through its event horizon into a black hole. New matter, falling towards black hole, release new energy and probably forms accretion disk. Perhaps the ejection of jets of matter in radio galaxies and quasars is large scale version of SS433. These ideas are of course speculative, we know we have small compact source of enormous energy, and it seems reasonable to suppose it to be associated with something like black hole, but no one model has achieved anything close to universal acceptance
Formation
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Current cosmological models of the early Universe are based on the Big Bang theory. About 300,000 years after this event, atoms of hydrogen and helium began to form, in an event called recombination. Nearly all the hydrogen was neutral (non-ionized) and readily absorbed light, and no stars had yet formed. As a result this period has been called the "Dark Ages". It was from density fluctuations (or anisotropic irregularities) in this primordial matter that larger structures began to appear. As a result, masses of baryonic matter started to condense within cold dark matter halos. These primordial structures would eventually become the galaxies we see today. Evidence for the early appearance of galaxies was found in 2006, when it was discovered that the galaxy IOK-1 has an unusually high redshift of 6.96, corresponding to just 750 million years after the Big Bang and making it the most distant and primordial galaxy yet seen. While some scientists have claimed other objects (such as Abell 1835 IR1916) have higher redshifts (and therefore are seen in an earlier stage of the Universe's evolution), IOK-1's age and composition have been more reliably established. The existence of such early protogalaxies suggests that they must have grown in the so-called "Dark Ages. The detailed process by which such early galaxy formation occurred is a major open question in astronomy. Theories could be divided into two categories: top-down (or Outside In) and bottom-up (or Inside Out). In top-down theories protogalaxies are form in a large-scale simultaneous collapse lasting about one hundred million years. In bottom-up theories small structures such as globular clusters form first, and then a number of such bodies accrete to form a larger galaxy. Modern theories must be modified to account for the probable presence of large dark matter halos. Once protogalaxies began to form and contract, the first halo stars (called Population III stars) appeared within them. These were composed almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, and may have been massive. If so, these huge stars would have quickly consumed their supply of fuel and became supernovae, releasing heavy elements into the interstellar medium. This first generation of stars reionized the surrounding neutral hydrogen, creating expanding bubbles of space through which light could readily travel.
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2, Evolution
Within a billion years of a galaxy's formation, key structures begin to appear. Globular clusters, the central supermassive black hole, and a galactic bulge of metal-poor Population II stars form. The creation of a supermassive black hole appears to play a key role in actively regulating the growth of galaxies by limiting the total amount of additional matter added. During this early epoch, galaxies undergo a major burst of star formation. During the following two billion years, the accumulated matter settles into a galactic disc. A galaxy will continue to absorb infalling material from high velocity clouds and dwarf galaxies throughout its life. This matter is mostly hydrogen and helium. The cycle of stellar birth and death slowly increases the abundance of heavy elements, eventually allowing the formation of planets.
Figure 8.30 I Zwicky 18 (lower left) resemble a newly formed galaxy. The evolution of galaxies can be significantly affected by interactions and collisions. Mergers of galaxies were common during the early epoch, and the majority of galaxies were peculiar in morphology. Given the distances between the stars, the great majority of stellar systems in colliding galaxies will be unaffected. However, gravitational stripping of the interstellar gas and dust that makes up the spiral arms produces a long train of stars known as tidal tails.
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Examples of these formations can be seen in NGC 4676 or the Antennae Galaxies. As an example of such an interaction, the Milky Way galaxy and the nearby Andromeda Galaxy are moving toward each other at about 130 km /s and depending upon the lateral movementsthe two may collide in about five to six billion years. Although the Milky Way has never collided with a galaxy as large as Andromeda before, evidence of past collisions of the Milky Way with smaller dwarf galaxies is increasing. Such large-scale interactions are rare. As time passes, mergers of two systems of equal size become less common. Most bright galaxies have remained fundamentally unchanged for the last few billion years, and the net rate of star formation probably also peaked approximately ten billion years ago.
Future trends
At present, most star formation occurs in smaller galaxies where cool gas is not so depleted. Spiral galaxies, like the Milky Way, only produce new generations of stars as long as they have dense molecular clouds of interstellar hydrogen in their spiral arms. Elliptical galaxies are already largely devoid of this gas, and so form no new stars. The supply of star-forming material is finite; once stars have converted the available supply of hydrogen into heavier elements, new star formation will come to an end. The current era of star formation is expected to continue for up to one hundred billion years, and then the "stellar age" will wind down after about ten trillion to one hundred trillion years (10131014 years), as the smallest, longest-lived stars in our astrosphere, tiny red dwarfs, begin to fade. At the end of the stellar age, galaxies will be composed of compact objects: brown dwarfs, white dwarfs that are cooling or cold ("black dwarfs"), neutron stars, and black holes. Eventually, as a result of gravitational relaxation, all stars will either fall into central supermassive black holes or be flung into intergalactic space as a result of collisions.
8.10 Large-scale structure of the cosmos and Groups and clusters of galaxies
There are probably more than 100 billion (1011) galaxies in the observable universe. Most galaxies are 1,000 to 100,000 parsecs in diameter and are usually separated by distances on the order of millions of parsecs (or megaparsecs). Intergalactic space (the space
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between galaxies) is filled with a tenuous gas of an average density less than one atom per cubic meter. The majority of galaxies are organized into a hierarchy of associations called clusters, which, in turn, can form larger groups called superclusters. These larger structures are generally arranged into sheets and filaments, which surround immense voids in the universe, Deep sky surveys show that galaxies are often found in relatively close association with other galaxies. Solitary galaxies that have not significantly interacted with another galaxy of comparable mass during the past billion years are relatively scarce. Only about 5% of the galaxies surveyed have been found to be truly isolated; however, these isolated formations may have interacted and even merged with other galaxies in the past, and may still be orbited by smaller, satellite galaxies. Isolated galaxies can produce stars at a higher rate than normal, as their gas is not being stripped by other, nearby galaxies. On the largest scale, the universe is continually expanding, resulting in an average increase in the separation between individual galaxies (see Hubble's law). Associations of galaxies can overcome this expansion on a local scale through their mutual gravitational attraction. These associations formed early in the universe, as clumps of dark matter pulled their respective galaxies together. Nearby groups later merged to form larger-scale clusters. This ongoing merger process (as well as an influx of infalling gas) heats the inter-galactic gas within a cluster to very high temperatures, reaching 30100 million K. About 7080% of the mass in a cluster is in the form of dark matter, with 1030% consisting of this heated gas and the remaining few percent of the matter in the form of galaxies.
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Figure 8.31 Seyfert's Sextet is an example of a compact galaxy group. Most galaxies in the universe are gravitationally bound to a number of other galaxies. These form a fractal-like hierarchy of clustered structures, with the smallest such associations being termed groups. A group of galaxies is the most common type of galactic cluster, and these formations contain a majority of the galaxies (as well as most of the baryonic mass) in the universe. To remain gravitationally bound to such a group, each member galaxy must have a sufficiently low velocity to prevent it from escaping. If there is insufficient kinetic energy, however, the group may evolve into a smaller number of galaxies through mergers. Larger structures containing many thousands of galaxies packed into an area a few megaparsecs across are called clusters. Clusters of galaxies are often dominated by a single giant elliptical galaxy, known as the brightest cluster galaxy, which, over time, tidally destroys its satellite galaxies and adds their mass to its own. Superclusters contain tens of thousands of galaxies, which are found in clusters, groups and sometimes individually. At the supercluster scale, galaxies are arranged into sheets and filaments surrounding vast empty voids. Above this scale, the universe appears to be isotropic and homogeneous. The Milky Way galaxy is a member of an association named the Local Group, a relatively small group of galaxies that has a diameter of approximately one megaparsec. The Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy are the two brightest galaxies within the group; many of the other member galaxies are dwarf companions of these two galaxies. The Local Group itself is a part of a cloud-like structure within the
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Virgo Supercluster, a large, extended structure of groups and clusters of galaxies centered on the Virgo Cluster.
Figure 8.32 Rotation curve of a typical spiral galaxy: predicted (A) and observed (B). The distance is from the galactic core. In 1944 Hendrik van de Hulst predicted microwave radiation at a wavelength of 21 cm resulting from interstellar atomic hydrogen gas; this radiation was observed in 1951. The radiation allowed for much improved study of the Milky Way Galaxy, since it is not affected by dust absorption and its Doppler shift can be used to map the motion of the gas in the Galaxy. These observations led to the postulation of a rotating bar structure in the center of the Galaxy. With improved radio telescopes, hydrogen gas could also be traced in other galaxies. In the 1970s it was discovered in Vera Rubin's study of the rotation speed of gas in galaxies that the total visible mass (from the stars and gas) does not properly account for the speed of the rotating gas. This galaxy rotation problem is thought to be explained by the presence of large quantities of unseen dark matter. Beginning in the 1990s, the Hubble Space Telescope yielded improved observations. Among other things, it established that the missing dark matter in our galaxy cannot solely consist of inherently faint and small stars. The Hubble Deep Field, an extremely long exposure of a relatively empty part of the sky, provided evidence that there are about 125 billion (1.251011) galaxies in the universe. Improved technology in detecting the spectra invisible to humans (radio telescopes, infrared
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cameras, and x-ray telescopes) allow detection of other galaxies that are not detected by Hubble. Particularly, galaxy surveys in the zone of avoidance (the region of the sky blocked by the Milky Way) have revealed a number of new galaxies.
suggests that supermassive black holes may exist at the center of many, if not all, galaxies. They are proposed to be the primary cause of active galactic nuclei found at the core of some galaxies. The Milky Way galaxy appears to harbor at least one such objects within its nucleus.
8.13 Quasars
If we consider the sun as typical among stars to be a radio emitter, we would not expect to be able to observe a single other star at radio wavelengths, the radio emission from the stars would be too feeble to detect with existing instruments. It was with considerable surprise that in 1960 two radio sources was identified with what appear to be stars. There seems to be no chance that the identifications were in error because the precise position of the radio sources was pinned down by noting the exact instants they were occulted by the moon. By 1963 the number of such radio stars has increased to four. They were especially perplexing objects because their optical spectra showed emission lines that at first could not be identified known chemical elements. The real breakthrough came in 1963, when M Smidth, at Caltechs Palomar observatory recognized the emission lines in one of the object to be Balmer lines of hydrogen shifted far to the red from their normal wavelengths. If the redshift are the Doppler shift then the object must be receding from us at about 15 percent the speed of light. With this hint, the emission lines in other objects were reexamined to see if they too might be well known lines with large redshifts, such proved, indeed to be the case, but the other objects were found to be receding from us even at greater speeds. Thus they could be not our neighboring stars; their stellar appearance might be due to the fact that they are very distant. They are therefore called Quasi-Stellar-RadioSources or simply Quasi-Stellar Sources (abbreviated QSS). Later similar objects found were not the sources of strong radio emissions. Today they all are designated by the term QUASAR. The discovery of these peculiar objects prompted the search for the others. A modern procedure is to look for stellar appearing object at the position of unidentified radio sources or to examine stellar appearing images of peculiar blue color. By 1980 hundreds of quasars had been catalogued and systematic survey
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indicates that there must be more than 20,000 brighter than 18 magnitudes. The number of still fainter is not known but they must be many. All have the spectra that show large to very large redshifts. The relative shifts of wavelength range upto / = 3.53 corresponds to velocity of recession of 91 percent of the speed of light. Most investigators regarded the redshifts of the distances and that they confirmed to the Hubble Law. The quasars have very much higher speeds than any known galaxy and must be even more distant.
8.14 Characteristics
The quasars are unresolved optically, that is, they appear stellar and most of them as very faint stars 3C273 (Figure 8.32 37.29) is still several hundred times too faint to see with the unaided eye. Few quasars are associated with tiny wisps of filaments of nuclear appearing matter. Some are resolved at radio wavelengths, which indicate that the radio energy come from region outside the photographic images as found for the radio radiation from galaxies that often originates from outside their optical images. The radio radiation is believed to be synchrotron. Quasars differ considerably from each other in luminosity. They are extremely luminous at all wavelengths. In radio energy they are as bright as brightest radio galaxies and in visible light most are far more luminous than the brightest elliptical galaxies. They have absolute magnitude in the range -25 or -26 and are very blue in color. In fact, one of those recognizable characteristics is their excess amount of their ultraviolet radiation, compared with normal star and galaxies. Most surprising of all is that almost all of them are variable both in radio emission and visible range. There variations are irregular evidently at random by few tenths of magnitude or so, but some times flare-ups of more than a magnitude are observed in an interval of few weeks. Since the quasars are highly luminous a change in brightness by a magnitude (a factor of 2.5 in light) means extremely great amount of energy is released rather suddenly. Further, as the fluctuations occur in such short times, the part of quasar responsible for light and radio variations must be smaller than the distance light travels in a month or so, otherwise the light emitted at one time from different parts of the objects would reach the earth at different times and we would see the increased spread over long time.
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Figure 8.33 Bending light around a massive object from a distant source. The orange arrows show the apparent position of the background source. The white arrows show the path of the light from the true position of the source.
Summery
1. A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that
consists of stars and stellar remnants, 2. Actual proof of the Milky Way consisting of many stars came in 1610 when Galileo Galilei used a telescope to study the Milky Way and discovered that it is composed of a huge number of faint stars.
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3. A very significant contribution to our knowledge of the galaxies was provides by the work of William Herschel and his only son, John (1792-1871). 4. the word Universe was understood to mean the entirety of existence 5. Typical galaxies range from dwarfs with as few as ten million (107) stars up to giants with one trillion (1012) stars, all orbiting the galaxy's center of mass 6. Galaxies can also contain many multiple star systems, star clusters, and various interstellar clouds. 7. elliptical galaxies are spherical ellipsoidal system that is thought to consist almost entirely of old stars 8. A spiral galaxy consists of a nucleus, a disk, a halo and the spiral arm 9. A large minority of spiral galaxies display bars running through nuclei 10. Spiral galaxies consist of a rotating disk of stars and interstellar medium, along with a central bulge of generally older stars 11. Peculiar galaxies are galactic formations that develop unusual properties due to tidal interactions with other galaxies 12. Theories could be divided into two categories: top-down and bottom-up. In top-down theories protogalaxies are form in a large-scale simultaneous collapse lasting about one hundred million years. In bottom-up theories small structures such as globular clusters form first, and then a number of such bodies accrete to form a larger galaxy. 13. (or Outside In) 14. The creation of a supermassive black hole appears to play a key role in actively regulating the growth of galaxies by limiting the total amount of additional matter added. 15. The evolution of galaxies can be significantly affected by interactions and collisions. Mergers of galaxies were common during the early epoch, and the majority of galaxies were peculiar in morphology. 16. At present, most star formation occurs in smaller galaxies where cool gas is not so depleted. 17. There are probably more than 100 billion (1011) galaxies in the observable universe.
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18. Most galaxies in the universe are gravitationally bound to a number of other galaxies.
Exercises
Fill in the blanks 1 In 1755 Immanuel Kant introduced the term ___________ for distant nebulae. 2 Typical galaxies range from _________ with as few as ten million (107) stars up to __________ with one trillion (1012) stars, all orbiting the galaxy's center of mass. 3 The __________is one of the stars in the Milky Way galaxy. 4 Galaxies differ a great deal among themselves but majority fall into two general classes____________ and ____________. 5 A minority of galaxies are classed as ___________. 6 Starburst galaxies are the result of a ___________ collision. 7 In spiral galaxies, the spiral arms have the shape of approximate ___________ spirals. 8 Ultra-compact dwarf galaxies have recently been discovered that are only ____________ across. 9 Stars are created within galaxies from a reserve of __________ that forms into giant molecular clouds. 10 A portion of the galaxies we can observe are classified as ________. 11 Theories of formation of galaxies could be divided into two categories namely ______________ and _____________. 12 Only about ______ of the galaxies surveyed have been found to be truly isolated. 13 _________ matter appears to account for around 90% of the mass of most galaxies. 14 _________ are extremely luminous at all wavelengths. Short questions with answer Q1. What is a galaxy? Ans. A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy
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Q2. Ans.
Q3. Ans.
Q6. Ans.
Q7.
derives from the Greek term for our own galaxy, galaxias "milky circle" for its appearance in the sky. When it was proved that Milky Way consists of number of stars? Actual proof of the Milky Way consisting of many stars came in 1610 when Galileo Galilei used a telescope to study the Milky Way and discovered that it is composed of a huge number of faint stars. What is a nebula? nebulae (plural of nebula) that literally means clouds. Faint star clusters glowing gas clouds, dust clouds reflecting starlight, and galaxies all appear as joint unresolved luminous patches when viewed visually with the telescopes of only moderate size, Since the true nature of these objects were not known to early observers , all of them were called nebulae. Today we usually reserve the word nebula for the true gas or dust clouds, but some astronomers still refer to galaxies as nebulae or extragalactic nebulae. What is universe? The word Universe means the entirety of existence. What were the first galaxies other than the Milky Way to be observed from Earth? In the 10th century, the Persian astronomer, Abd al-Rahman alSufi (known in the West as Azophi), made the earliest recorded observation of the Andromeda Galaxy, describing it as a "small cloud". Al-Sufi also identified the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is visible from Yemen, though not from Isfahan; it was not seen by Europeans until Magellan's voyage in the 16th century. These were the first galaxies other than the Milky Way to be observed from Earth. What is a galaxy? A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy derives from the Greek term for our own galaxy, galaxias "milky circle" for its appearance in the sky. What do you understand by term island universe?
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Ans. In 1755 Immanuel Kant introduced the term "island universe" in his hypothesis for distant nebulae which states that spiral nebulae are actually independent galaxies. Q8. What is the structure of galaxy? Ans. Typical galaxies range from dwarfs with as few as ten million (107) stars up to giants with one trillion (1012) stars, all orbiting the galaxy's center of mass. Galaxies can also contain many multiple star systems, star clusters, and various interstellar clouds. Q9. What are the types of galaxy? Ans. Galaxies differ a great deal among themselves but majority fall into two general classes; ellipticals and spirals; a minority is classed as irregular Q10. How galaxies are classified? Ans. There have been many classification schemes proposed for galaxies, among them, one of the earliest, the simplest. And the most used scheme was invented by Hubble during his studies of galaxies in 1920s It consisted of three principal classification sequences elliptical, spiral and barred spirals while the irregular galaxies (IrrI and IrrII) forms a fourth class of object in this classification Q11. What are peculiar galaxies? Ans. Peculiar galaxies are galactic formations that develop unusual properties due to tidal interactions with other galaxies. An example of this is the ring galaxy, which possesses a ring-like structure of stars and interstellar medium surrounding a bare core, another peculiar galaxy is a lenticular galaxy which is an intermediate form that has properties of both elliptical and spiral galaxies. These are categorized as Hubble type S0, and they possess ill-defined spiral arms with an elliptical halo of stars Q12. What is the relative prominence galaxy? Ans. Despite the prominence of large elliptical and spiral galaxies, most galaxies in the universe appear to be dwarf galaxies. These tiny galaxies are about one hundredth the size of the Milky Way; ultra-compact dwarf galaxies that have recently been discovered are only 100 parsecs across. Q13. What is average separation between galaxies? Ans. The average separation between galaxies within a cluster is a little over an order of magnitude larger than their diameter.
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Q14. Ans.
Q15. Ans.
Q18. Ans.
Q19. Ans.
Hence interactions between these galaxies are relatively frequent, and play an important role in their evolution What is a Starburst galaxy? Starburst galaxies are characterized by dusty concentrations of gas and the appearance of newly formed stars, including massive stars that ionize the surrounding clouds to create H II regions. Starburst galaxies were more common during the early history of the universe, and, at present, still contribute an estimated 15% to the total star production rate. What is an active galaxy? A portion of the galaxies we can observe are classified as active. That is, a significant portion of the total energy output from the galaxy is emitted by a source other than the stars, dust and interstellar medium. What is a Seyfert galaxy? Active galaxies that emit high-energy radiation in the form of xrays are classified as Seyfert galaxies or quasars, depending on the luminosity. What are N-galaxies? N-galaxies having small nuclei that are very bright compared with the main part of these galaxies appear as stellar images superposed on joint wispy or nebulous backgrounds. Their bright nuclei indicate that enormous amount of energy being emitted from those regions. What are the different processes of the formation of galaxies? The detailed process by which such early galaxy formation occurred is a major open question in astronomy. Theories could be divided into two categories: top-down (or outside In) and bottom-up (or inside Out). In top-down theories protogalaxies are form in a large-scale simultaneous collapse lasting about one hundred million years. In bottom-up theories small structures such as globular clusters form first, and then a number of such bodies accrete to form a larger galaxy. What are the numbers galaxies in the universe? How they are arranged? The Hubble Deep Field, an extremely long exposure of a relatively empty part of the sky, provided evidence that there are about 125 billion (1.251011) galaxies in observable universe. Most galaxies are 1,000 to 100,000 parsecs in diameter and are usually separated by distances on the order
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of millions of parsecs (or megaparsecs). The majority of galaxies are organized into a hierarchy of associations called clusters, which, in turn, can form larger groups called superclusters. These larger structures are generally arranged into sheets and filaments, which surround immense voids in the universe. Study Questions Q1. What were the views of the ancients about the Milky Way? Q2. What nebula? How do you differentiate from the galaxy? Q3. What are the typical range of galaxies? Q4. What are different types of galaxies? Q5. Write note on: Elliptical galaxy Spiral Galaxies Barred spiral galaxy Irregular Galaxies Q6. Explain the Hubble classification scheme of the galaxies? Q7. Define the unusual galaxies? Q8. What is active galactic nucleus? Q9. Discuss the Violent Activities in Galaxies? Q10. Discuss the properties source of energy of Active Galactic Nuclei? Q11. How the galaxies are formed? Q12. What is the process of the evolution of the galaxies? Q13. What is Quasars? Explain its characteristics? Q14. Discuss the Large-scale structure of the cosmos? Q15. What is gravitational lens?
Creation of Universe
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Unit V
Chapter 9
Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born Swiss-American theoretical physicist, philosopher and author who is
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widely regarded as one of the most influential and best known scientists and intellectuals of all time. He is often regarded as the father of modern physics. He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect."
The Universe
When we look off into space we look back into time for we see remote objects as (and where) they were far in the past, when the light left them to begin its long journey across space to reach our telescopes. Remote objects, therefore in a sense are the historical documents in the universe even though we have difficulty in interpreting their meanings. It is clear that if the stars are in the galaxies, galaxies in the cluster of galaxies and clusters in superclusters, it is natural to wonder whether hierarchy might go on to ever higher orders of clusters of galaxies. The available evidence suggests that it does not because. First, if it did, it would never be possible to define a region of space beyond which the universe is homogeneous because large hierarchal structures would always exist. This would violet the cosmological principle as against the observations. Further the superclusters appear to expanding and the meager evidence suggests that most are not gravitationally bound. If superclusters are not gravitationally bound, the next order cluster should expand more rapidly and the order beyond them more so yet. It is hard to see how this hierarchal structure be maintained. Research by George Rainey has ruled out the inhomogeneites in a scale as large as 500 million parsecs. This indicates that there cannot be super-duper cluster. Moreover, faint background of radio radiations that we interpret as dying glow of big bang that started the expansion of the universe suggest that uniformity of the radiation in different directions is impressive and argues for higher high degree of homogeneity in the universe at large. Most or all the matter of the universe appears to be clustered in the system of size upto at least 300 million light years-superclusters, but
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on very large scale the universe is very uniform which rules out the hierarchal distribution of matter in space. However, the future of the universe depends critically on mean density of the matter in space. Since it would add to the mass and hence the gravitation of the universe, but not to the light. If such matter was concentrated in the cluster of galaxies, it could account for their, perhaps high mass to light ratios. But the total mass of such matter in the universe would nevertheless already be tallied, for it is included in the masses we drive for clusters. One of the possible candidates for the dark matter in the universe if it exists is neutrinos. In fact, they should turn out to have non zero rest mass. If they are distributed uniformly throughout the universe, it is estimated that at present each square centimeter contains several hundred neutrinos, originally produced in big bang, If they should have no rest mass, or very small rest mass, neutrinos are expected to be distributed uniformly. A neutrino would have to have a mass as much as 2 x 106 times that of electron to contribute to the density of the universe enough to effect its evolution and if they should have very tiny rest mass neutrinos would probably clump with clusters or superclusters of galaxies. Here we should point out that the evidence for neutrinos having mass is only suggestive, but even if this suggestion is correct, neutrinos probably cannot be important in overall gravitation of the universe. They could however, play an important role in resolving high mass to light ratio anomalies in galaxies and clusters. The theory of large scale structure, which governs the formation of structure in the universe stars, quasars, galaxies and galaxy clusters, also suggests that the density of baryonic matter in the universe is only 30% of the critical density.
component to our universe. The first direct evidence for dark energy came from supernova observations of accelerated expansion.
Figure 9.2 Dark Matter In physical cosmology, astronomy and celestial mechanics, dark energy is a hypothetical form of energy that permeates all of space and tends to increase the rate of expansion of the universe. Dark energy is the most popular way to explain recent observations that the universe appears to be expanding at an accelerating. In the standard model of cosmology, dark energy currently accounts for 74% of the total mass-energy of the universe.
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Two proposed forms for dark energy are the cosmological constant, a constant energy density filling space homogeneously, and scalar fields such as quintessence or moduli, dynamic quantities whose energy density can vary in time and space. Contributions from scalar fields that are constant in space are usually also included in the cosmological constant. The cosmological constant is physically equivalent to vacuum energy. Scalar fields which do change in space can be difficult to distinguish from a cosmological constant because the change may be extremely slow. The exact nature of this dark energy is a matter of speculation. It is known to be very homogeneous, not very dense and is not known to interact through any of the fundamental forces other than gravity. Since it is not very dense roughly 1029 grams per cubic centimeter it is hard to imagine experiments to detect it in the laboratory. Dark energy can only have such a profound impact on the universe, making up 74% of universal density, because it uniformly fills otherwise empty space. The two leading models are quintessence and the cosmological constant. Both models include the common characteristic that dark energy must have negative pressure.
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This accelerating expansion effect is sometimes labeled "gravitational repulsion", which is a colorful but possibly confusing expression. In fact a negative pressure does not influence the gravitational interaction between masses - which remains attractive - but rather alters the overall evolution of the universe at the cosmological scale, typically resulting in the accelerating expansion of the universe despite the attraction among the masses present in the universe.
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protons, electrons, positrons and neutrons and neutrinos. By the time the universe was 100 s old, the temperature has dropped to 109 K and the particles began to combine to form heavier nuclei, this neucleosynthesis continued for next few minutes during which about 25 percent of the mass of the material formed into helium. Some deuterium was also formed but only a small amount probably less than one part in ten thousand. The actual amount of the deuterium formed depends critically on the density of the fireball, if it was fairly high, most of the deuterium would have been built up into helium. Scarcely any nuclei heavier than those of helium are expected to have survived so the composition of the fireball when the nuclear building ceased is thought to have been mostly hydrogen, about 25 percent helium and traces of deuterium. It was the striking success of the standard model that the predicted ratio of hydrogen to helium three to one by mass is just the ratio observed in stars ad interstellar matter. A small enhancement of helium must have resulted from the neucleosynthesis in stars, to be sure, but by far most of the helium must be primordial especially in the outer layers of the stars. Hence the agreement between prediction and observation must be regarded as a second triumph for the big bang and the relativistic evolving cosmological theories, the first being the expansion of the universe. For next few hundred thousand years, the fireball was like a stellar interior- hot and opaque with radiation being scattered from one particle to another. By about 700,000 years after the big bang the temperature has dropped to about 3000 K and the density of the atomic nuclei to about 1000 per cubic centimeter. Under these conditions, the electrons and nuclei combine to form stable atom of hydrogen and helium. With no free electrons to scatter photons, the universe became transparent, and the matter and radiation no longer interacted subsequently each evolved in its separate way. One thousand million years after the big bang stars and the galaxies had probably begun to form but we are not sure of the precise mechanisms. Certainly, deep in the interior of star the matter was reheated, star began to shine, nuclear reactions were ignited and the gradual synthesis of the heaver elements began. Now we must point out that the fireball must not be thought of a localized explosion like exploding superstar. There were no boundaries and no site of explosion. It was everywhere. The fireball still exists in a sense. It
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has expanded greatly but the original matter and radiation are still present and accounted for. The stuff of our bodies comes from the material in the fireball. We were and are still in the midst of it. It is all around us. 9.5 Hubble Expansion Model
In 1931, Hubble and Milton Humason jointly published their classical paper in Astrophysical Journal, which compared the distances and the velocities of remote galaxies moving away from us at so speed up to nearly 20,000 Km/s. Their law of the red shift (Figure 9.4) now known as Hubble Law established the expansion of the universe beyond doubt, even though the authors were cautious about so interpreting their observations.
Figure 9.4 Hubble and Humasons velocity distance relation adapted from their 1931 paper in the Astrophysical Journal. Subsequently more and more remote galaxies of greater and greater speed of recession have been found The cluster of galaxies as shown in the Figure 9.5 moves away from us at the speed of 108,000 Km/s-36 percent of the speed of light. Even more remote clusters have been found, in 1981 Hyron Spinrad at University of California, Berkeley reported the observation of two clusters receding at about 60 percent the speed of light. The relative distances to the clusters are known fairly well, and so the accuracy of the observations, remote cluster of galaxies has velocities that are proportional to their distances. The constant of proportionality, symbolized H and called Hubble constant specifies the rate of recession of galaxies or clusters of various distances. The Hubble constant is now believed to lie in the
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range 50 to 100 Km/s per million parsecs. If H is 75 Km/s per million parsecs a cluster moves away from us at a speed of 75 Km/s for every million parsecs of its distances. A test of Hubble law involved the speed of receding galaxies at great distances. The evolutionary model predicted the expansion to slow down due to the gravitational forces between galaxies. Because of these changes in the rate of expansion of universe, the radial velocities of remote galaxies would deviate from a relation exactly proportional to their observed distances, that is. The graph of radial velocity versus distance should not necessarily be straight line for very distant galaxies.
Figure 9.5 JKCS 041 is a group of galaxies with the distinction of being the farthest away group from Earth ever observed, as of 2009. It is estimated to be 10.2 billion light years away, seen at redshift 1.9.The cluster is located at a photometrically determined redshift of z=1.9 at right ascension 2h 26m 44s declination -04 41 37.
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Due to expansion these remote parts of universe should be receding from us at a speed within two parts in a million of that of light. The radiation from them would be Doppler shifted to the wavelengths a thousand times than those at which it was emitted. We know when the black body approaches us, the Doppler shift shortens the wavelength of its light and because it to mimic a black body of higher temperature, When a black body recedes, it mimics a cooler black body. Alpher and Herman predicted that the glow from the fireball should now be at radio wavelengths and should resemble the radiation from a black body at a temperature of only 5 K- just little degree above absolute zero, unfortunately, there was no way in 1948 of observing such radiation from space. Thus the prediction does not attract much attention. However, in mid 1960s, the idea occurred independently to Princeton physicist Robert H. Dick who realized that microwave radio telescope could be built to detect the dying glow of big bang. During this period Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson of the Bell Laboratories used delicate microwave horn antenna to make careful measures of absolute intensity of radio radiation coming from certain places in the Galaxy, but they were plunged with some unexpected background noise in the system that they could not get rid off. They checked every thing and eliminated the Galaxy as source, also the sun and sky, the ground and even the equipment. Finally, they decided that the radiation they have been detecting were from space. Penzias mentioned it in a telephonic conversation with another radio astronomer B. Burke, who was aware of Princeton work. Burke got Penzias in touch with Dick and it was soon realized that the glow from primeval fireball has been observed. Since then the radiations has been very thoroughly checked throughout the entire radio spectrum. The observed microwave background radiation closely matches that expected from blackbody with a temperature of 2.7 K. Penzias and Wilson received the Noble prize for their work in 1978, and perhaps almost equally fitted, just before his death in 1966. Lemaitre learned about the discovery of his Vanished Brilliance
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Faint glow of radio radiation now called cosmic background radiation (CBR). It has now been observed at many wavelengths and all observations are compatible with CBR being red shifted radiation emitted by hot gas. It indicated that the universe has been evolved from a hot uniform state. At a given wavelength CBR is extremely isotropic on a small scale, recent Soviet observations claim that CBR is isotropic on a small scale to better than a few parts in 105. The uniformity of the radiation reveals that at an age of less than a million years the universe had to be present to allow matter to gravitationally clump up to form stars and galaxies. The isotropy of the CBR put interesting constraints on the theories of star and galaxy formation. Estimated distribution of dark matter and dark energy in the universe, the existence of dark energy, in whatever form, is needed to reconcile the measured geometry of space with the total amount of matter in the universe. Measurements of cosmic microwave background radiation (CBR) anisotropies, most recently by the WMAP satellite; indicate that the universe is very close to flat. For the shape of the universe to be flat, the mass/energy density of the universe must be equal to a certain critical density. The total amount of matter in the universe (including baryons and dark matter), as measured by the CBR, accounts for only about 30% of the critical density. This implies the existence of an additional form of energy to account for the remaining 70%. The most recent WMAP observations are consistent with a universe made up of 74% dark energy, 22% dark matter, and 4% ordinary matter. High-precision measurements of the expansion of the universe are required to understand how the expansion rate changes over time. In general relativity, the evolution of the expansion rate is parameterized by the cosmological equation of state. Measuring the equation of state of dark energy is one of the biggest efforts in observational cosmology today. Adding the cosmological constant to cosmology's standard FLRW metric leads to the Lambda-CDM model, which has been referred to as the standard model of cosmology because of its precise agreement with observations? Dark energy has been used as a crucial ingredient in a recent attempt to formulate a cyclic model for the universe.
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In 1998, published observations of Type Ia supernovae ("one-A") by the High-z Supernova Search Team followed in 1999 by the Supernova Cosmology Project suggested that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. Since then, these observations have been corroborated by several independent sources. Measurements of the background, gravitational, and the large scale structure of the cosmos as well as improved measurements of supernovae have been consistent with the Lambda-CDM model. Supernovae are useful for cosmology because they are excellent standard candles across cosmological distances. They allow the expansion history of the Universe to be measured by looking at the relationship between the distance to an object and its redshift, which gives how fast it is receding from us. The relationship is roughly linear, according to Hubble's law. It is relatively easy to measure redshift, but finding the distance to an object is more difficult. Usually, astronomers use standard candles: objects for which the intrinsic brightness, the absolute magnitude, is known. This allows the object's distance to be measured from its actually observed brightness, or apparent magnitude. Type Ia supernovae are the best-known standard candles across cosmological distances because of their extreme, and extremely consistent, brightness. Recent observations of supernovae are consistent with a universe made up 71.3% of dark energy and 27.4% of a combination of dark matter and baryonic matter.
forming (e.g. between plates with tiny separation). The cosmological constant is estimated by cosmologists to be on the order of 1029g/cm, or about 10120 in reduced Planck units. However, particle physics predicts a natural value of 1 in reduced Planck units, a large discrepancy which is still not explained. The cosmological constant has negative pressure equal to its energy density and so causes the expansion of the universe to accelerate. The reason why a cosmological constant has negative pressure can be seen from classical thermodynamics; Energy must be lost from inside a container to do work on the container. A change in volume dV requires work done equal to a change of energy p dV, where p is the pressure. But the amount of energy in a box of vacuum energy actually increases when the volume increases (dV is positive), because the energy is equal to V, where (rho) is the energy density of the cosmological constant. Therefore, p is negative and, in fact, p = . A major outstanding problem is that most quantum field theories predict a huge cosmological constant from the energy of the quantum vacuum, more than 100 orders of magnitude too large. This would need to be cancelled almost, but not exactly, by an equally large term of the opposite sign. Some super symmetric theories require a cosmological constant that is exactly zero, which does not help. The present scientific consensus amounts to extrapolating the empirical evidence where it is relevant to predictions, and finetuning theories until a more elegant solution is found. Technically, this amounts to checking theories against macroscopic observations. Unfortunately, as the known error-margin in the constant predicts the fate of the universe more than its present state, many such "deeper" questions remain unknown. Another problem arises with inclusion of the cosmic constant in the standard model: i.e., the appearance of solutions with regions of discontinuities at low matter density. Discontinuity also affects the past sign of the pressure assigned to the cosmic constant, changing from the current negative pressure to attractive, as one looks back towards the early Universe. A systematic, model-independent evaluation of the supernovae data supporting inclusion of the cosmic constant in the standard model indicates these data suffer systematic
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error. The supernovae data are not overwhelming evidence for an accelerating Universe expansion which may be simply gliding. A numerical evaluation of WMAP and supernovae data for evidence that our local group exists in a local void with poor matter density compared to other locations, uncovered possible conflict in the analysis used to support the cosmic constant. These findings should be considered shortcomings of the standard model, but only when a term for vacuum energy is included. In spite of its problems, the cosmological constant is in many respects the most economical solution to the problem of cosmic acceleration. One number successfully explains a multitude of observations. Thus, the current standard model of cosmology, the Lambda-CDM model, includes the cosmological constant as an essential feature.
9.10 Quintessence
In quintessence models of dark energy, the observed acceleration of the scale factor is caused by the potential energy of a dynamical field, referred to as quintessence field. Quintessence differs from the cosmological constant in that it can vary in space and time. In order for it not to clump and form structure like matter, the field must be very light so that it has a large Compton wavelength. No evidence of quintessence is yet available, but it has not been ruled out either. It generally predicts a slightly slower acceleration of the expansion of the universe than the cosmological constant. Some scientists think that the best evidence for quintessence would come from violations of Einstein's equivalence principle and variation of the fundamental constants in space or time. Scalar fields are predicted by the standard model and string theory, but an analogous problem to the cosmological constant problem occurs: renormalization theory predicts that scalar fields should acquire large masses. The cosmic coincidence problem asks why the cosmic acceleration began when it did. If cosmic acceleration began earlier in the universe, structures such as galaxies would never have had time to form and life, at least as we know it would never have had a chance to exist. Proponents of the entropic principle view this as support for
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their arguments. However, many models of quintessence have a socalled tracker behavior, which solves this problem. In these models, the quintessence field has a density which closely tracks (but is less than) the radiation density until matter-radiation equality, which triggers quintessence to start behaving as dark energy, eventually dominating the universe. This naturally sets the low energy scale of the dark energy. In 2004, when scientists fit the evolution of dark energy with the cosmological data, they found that the equation of state had possibly crossed the cosmological constant boundary (w=1) from above to below. A No-Go theorem has been proved that to give this scenario at least two degrees of freedom are required for dark energy models. This scenario is so-called Quintom scenario. Some special cases of quintessence are phantom energy, in which the energy density of quintessence actually increases with time, and k-essence (short for kinetic quintessence) which has a non-standard form of kinetic energy. They can have unusual properties: phantom energy, for example, can cause a Big Rip.
matter and baryons. The density of dark matter in an expanding universe decreases more quickly than dark energy, and eventually the dark energy dominate. Specifically, when the volume of the universe doubles, the density of dark matter is halved but the density of dark energy is nearly unchanged (it is exactly constant in the case of a cosmological constant). If the acceleration continues indefinitely, the ultimate result will be that galaxies outside the local supercluster will move beyond the cosmic horizon: they will no longer be visible, because their lineof-sight velocity becomes greater than the speed of light. This is not a violation of special relativity, and the effect cannot be used to send a signal between them. (Actually there is no way to even define "relative speed" in a curved space time. Relative speed and velocity can only be meaningfully defined in flat space time or in sufficiently small (infinitesimal) regions of curved space time). Rather, it prevents any communication between them as the objects pass out of contact. The Earth, the Milky Way and the Virgo supercluster, however, would remain virtually undisturbed while the rest of the universe recedes. In this scenario, the local supercluster would ultimately suffer heat death, just as was thought for the flat, matter-dominated universe, before measurements of cosmic acceleration. There are some very speculative ideas about the future of the universe. One suggests that phantom energy causes divergent expansion, which would imply that the effective force of dark energy continues growing until it dominates all other forces in the universe. Under this scenario, dark energy would ultimately tear apart all gravitationally bound structures, including galaxies and solar systems, and eventually overcome the electrical and nuclear forces to tear apart atoms themselves, ending the universe in a "Big Rip". On the other hand, dark energy might dissipate with time, or even become attractive. Such uncertainties leave open the possibility that gravity might yet rule the day and lead to a universe that contracts in on itself in a "Big Crunch". Some scenarios, such as the cyclic model suggest this could be the case. While these ideas are not supported by observations, they are not ruled out. Measurements of acceleration are crucial to determining the ultimate fate of the universe in big bang theory.
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9.13 History
The cosmological constant was first proposed by Einstein as a mechanism to obtain a stable solution of the gravitational field equation that would lead to a static universe, effectively using dark energy to balance gravity. Not only was the mechanism an inelegant example of fine-tuning, it was soon realized that Einstein's static universe would actually be unstable because local inhomogeneities would ultimately lead to either the runaway expansion or contraction of the universe. The equilibrium is unstable: if the universe expands slightly, then the expansion releases vacuum energy, which causes yet more expansion. Likewise, a universe which contracts slightly will continue contracting. These sorts of disturbances are inevitable, due to the uneven distribution of matter throughout the universe. More importantly, observations made by Edwin Hubble showed that the universe appears to be expanding and not static at all. Einstein famously referred to his failure to predict the idea of a dynamic universe, in contrast to a static universe, as his greatest blunder. Following this realization, the cosmological constant was largely ignored as a historical curiosity. Alan Guth proposed in the 1970s that a negative pressure field, similar in concept to dark energy, could drive cosmic inflation in the very early universe. Inflation postulates that some repulsive force, qualitatively similar to dark energy, resulted in an enormous and exponential expansion of the universe slightly after the Big Bang. Such expansion is an essential feature of most current models of the Big Bang. However, inflation must have occurred at a much higher energy density than the dark energy we observe today and is thought to have completely ended when the universe was just a fraction of a second old. It is unclear what relation, if any, exists between dark energy and inflation. Even after inflationary models became accepted, the cosmological constant was thought to be irrelevant to the current universe.
Summery
There is High degree of homogeneity in the universe. The future of the universe depends on mean density of the matter in the space.
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Dark energy is the hypothetical form of energy that permeates all of the space and tends to increase the rate of expansion of universe. Two forms of dark energy are Cosmological constant and quintessence. Strong constant negative pressure in the entire universe causes acceleration in universe expansion if the universe is already expanding or a deceleration in universe contraction if the universe is already contracting. The Hubble constant is now believed to lie in the range 50 to 100 Km/s per million parsecs. The most recent WMAP observations are consistent with a universe made up of 74% dark energy, 22% dark matter, and 4% ordinary matter. The cosmological constant has negative pressure equal to its energy density and so causes the expansion of the universe to accelerate. Quintessence differs from the cosmological constant in that it can vary in space and time. Measurements of acceleration are crucial to determining the ultimate fate of the universe in big bang theory.
Exercises
Fill in the blanks 1. Remote objects in the space are _____________ documents in the universe. 2. Future of the universe depends on ____________ of the matter in the space. 3. Amount of deuterium formed depends critically on the ____________ of the fireball. 4. The ratio of hydrogen to helium is _____ by mass as observed in the space. 5. Universe is made up of 74% dark energy, 22% of dark matter and 4% of __________ matter. 6. Cosmological constant is essential feature of ___________ model. 7. Big Bang model was first proposed by _________________. 8. Radiations from Big Bang indicate high degree of ___________ in universe.
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9. Two forms of dark energies are ___________ and _________. 10 Stars and galaxies began to form about ____years after Big Bang. Short questions with answer Q1. Does the hierarchy in the order of the cluster of galaxies go on for ever? Ans. The available evidence suggests that it does not because. First, if it did, it would never be possible to define a region of space beyond which the universe is homogeneous because large hierarchal structures would always exist. This would violet the cosmological principle as against the observations. Further the superclusters appear to expanding and the meager evidence suggests that most are not gravitationally bound. If superclusters are not gravitationally bound, the next order cluster should expand more rapidly and the order beyond them more so yet. It is hard to see how this hierarchal structure be maintained. Q2. What is the evidence that suggest that the universe is homogeneous? Ans. The uniformity of the faint background of radio radiations that we interpret as dying glow of big bang that started the expansion of the universe in different directions is impressive and argues for higher high degree of homogeneity in the universe at large. Q3. On what does the future of the universe depends? Ans. The future of the universe depends critically on mean density of the matter in space. Since it would add to the mass and hence the gravitation of the universe, but not to the light. Q4. What is the dark Energy? Ans. Dark energy is a hypothetical form of energy that permeates all of space and tends to increase the rate of expansion of the universe. Dark energy is the most popular way to explain recent observations that the universe appears to be expanding at an accelerating. In the standard model of cosmology, dark energy currently accounts for 74% of the total mass-energy of the universe. Q5. What are the forms of Dark Energy?
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Ans. Two proposed forms for dark energy are the cosmological constant, a constant energy density filling space homogeneously, and scalar fields such as quintessence or moduli, dynamic quantities whose energy density can vary in time and space. Q6. Define cosmological constant? Ans. The cosmological constant was first proposed by Einstein as a mechanism to obtain a stable solution of the gravitational field equation that would lead to a static universe, effectively using dark energy to balance gravity. The cosmological constant, sometimes called Lambda (hence Lambda-CDM model) after the Greek letter , is the simplest explanation for dark energy, it is simply the "cost of having space". Q7. What was the condition of the universe when it was 100s old? Ans. By the time the universe was 100 s old, the temperature has dropped to 109 K and the particles began to combine to form heavier nuclei, this neucleosynthesis continued for next few minutes during which about 25 percent of the mass of the material formed into helium. Q8. What do you understand by the uniformity of cosmic background radiation? Ans. The uniformity of the radiation reveals that at an age of less than a million years the universe had to be present to allow matter to gravitationally clump up to form stars and galaxies. Q9. Why supernova is useful in cosmological models? Ans. Supernovae are useful for cosmology because they are excellent standard candles across cosmological distances. They allow the expansion history of the Universe to be measured by looking at the relationship between the distance to an object and its redshift, which gives how fast it is receding from us. Study Questions Q1. Define Dark Energy? Q2. What is Dark Matter? How does it affect the universe? Q3. What are the effects of negative pressure? Q4. When does universe became transparent?
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Q6. What is Quintessence? How it differ from cosmological constant? Q7. What is divergent expansion of universe? How it is responsible for Big Rip? Q8. Write a note on Cosmological constant. Q9. Explain Hubble expansion model. Q10.Discuss the standard model of Big Bang. Q11.Write a note on cosmic background radiation. Q12. What is the significance of dark energy in the fate of the universe?
Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of the heaven, blossumed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline, 1847
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Aquilae Arae Arietis Aurigae Bootis Caeli Camelopardali Camelopardalis s Cancer Cancri Canun Canes Venatici Venaticorum Canis Major Canis Majoris Canis Minor Canis Minoris
757 NH 506 NH Acubens 465 NH Cor Caroli 380 SH Sirius 183 NH Procyon
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
414 SH Algedi 494 SH Canopus 598 NH Schedar Rigil Centaur 1060 SH Kentaurus Cepheus 588 SH Alderamin Whale 1231 SH Menkar Chameleon 132 SH Compasses 93 SH
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24
Col
30 Cru 31 Cyg 32 Del 33 Dor 34 Dra 35 Equ 36 Eri 37 For 38 Gem 39 Gru 40 Her 41 Hor 42 Hya
43 44 45 46
Dove Berenice's Hair Southern Crown Northern Crown Crow Cup Southern Crux Crucis Cross Cygnus Cygni Swan Delphinus Delphini Dolphin Dorado Doradus Goldfish Draco Draconis Dragon Equuleus Equulei Little Horse Eridanus Eridani River Fornax Fornacis Furnace Gemini Geminorum Twins Grus Gruis Crane Hercules Herculis Hercules Horologium Horologii Clock Hydra ( Sea Hydra Hydrae Serpent ) Water Serpen Hydrus Hydri ( male ) Indus Indi Indian Lacerta Lacertae Lizard Leo Leonis Lion Smaller Leo Minor Leonis Minoris Lion Lepus Leporis Hare Libra Librae Balance Lupus Lupi Wolf Lynx Lyncis Lynx Lyra Lyrae Lyre Mensa Mensae Table Microscopium Microscopii Microscope Monoceros Monocerotis Unicorn
270 SH Phact 386 NH Diadem 128 SH 179 NH Alphecca 184 SH Alchiba 282 SH Alkes 68 804 189 179 1083 72 1138 398 514 366 1225 249 SH NH NH SH NH NH SH SH NH SH NH SH Acrux Deneb Sualocin Thuban Kitalpha Achernar Castor Al Na'ir Rasalgethi
1303 SH Alphard
243 294 201 947 232 290 538 334 545 286 153 210 482
SH SH NH NH Regulus NH SH SH SH NH NH SH SH SH
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56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80
Mus Nor Oct Oph Ori Pav Peg Per Phe Pic Psc PsA Pup Pyx Ret Sge Sgr Sco Scl Sct Ser Sex Tau Tel Tri
Musca Norma Octans Ophiucus Orion Pavo Pegasus Perseus Phoenix Pictor Pisces Pisces Austrinus Puppis Pyxis Reticulum Sagitta Sagittarius Scorpius Sculptor Scutum Serpens Sextans Taurus Telescopium Triangulum Triangulum Australe Tucana Ursa Major Ursa Minor Vela Virgo Volans
Orion Peacock Winged Pegasi Horse Persei Perseus Phoenicis Phoenix Pictoris Easel Piscium Fishes Southern Pisces Austrini Fish Puppis Stern Pyxidis Compass Reticuli Reticle Sagittae Arrow Sagittarii Archer Scorpii Scorpion Sculptoris Sculptor Scuti Shield Serpentis Sextantis Tauri Telescopii Trianguli Trianguli Australis Tucanae Ursae Majoris Ursae Minoris Velorum Virginis Volantis Serpent Sextant Bull Telescope
138 SH 165 SH 291 SH NH948 SH Rasalhague NH594 SH Betelgeuse 378 SH Peacock 1121 615 469 247 889 245 673 221 114 80 867 497 475 109 637 314 797 252 NH NH SH SH NH SH SH SH SH NH SH SH SH SH NHSH SH NH SH Markab Mirfak Ankaa Alrischa Fomalhaut
Rukbat Antares
Triangle 132 NH Southern Triangle 110 SH Toucan 295 SH Great Bear 1280 NH Little Bear 256 NH Sails 500 SH NHVirgin 1294 SH Flying Fish 141 SH
Spica
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88
Vul
Vulpecula
Vulpeculae
Fox
268 NH
ABBREV: IAU abbreviation CONSTELLATION: Latin name GENITIVE: Latin genitive (Possessive) ENGLISH NAME: English translation AREA: constellation size or area, in square degrees HEM: position in the celestial sphere: NH - northern celestial hemisphere - declination between 0 and +90 SH - southern celestial hemisphere - declination between 0 and - 90 ALPHA STAR: proper name of the alpha star.
Quantity
Value
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Mathematical constants Pi Radian Number of square degrees on a sphere Physical Constants Velocity of light Constant of gravitation Planks constant Boltzmanns constant Mass of hydrogen atom Mass of electron Charge on electron Stefan-Boltzmann constant Rydbergs constant 1 electron volt Astronomical Constants Astronomical unit Parsec Light year Tropical year Sidereal year Mass of earth Mass of sun Solar Radius Solar Luminosity
Rad.
3.1415926536 57.12957795 3437.174677 206264.80 41252.96124 2.99792458 x 1010 cm/s 6.672 x 10-8 dynes.cm2/g2 6,626 x 10-27ergs.s 1.381 x 10-16 erg/deg 1.673 x 10-24 g 9.1095 x 10-28 g 4.803 x 10-10 electrostatic units 5.670 x 10 -5 erg/ cm2 .deg4 .s 6.6x10-12 1.60217653x10-19 J 1.496 x 1011 meters =149,597,870.691 km 3.0857x1016 m = 3.08567802 1013 km = 206,265 A.U. 9.4605x1015 m = 9.460536207 1012 km = 63,240 A.U. 365.242199 ephemeris days 365.256366 ephemeris days 5.977 1027 g 1.9818 1038 g 6.9599x108 m 3.90x1026 W
C G h K mh me e R eV A.U. pc ly
Appendix c
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The first angle used to characterize a direction, typically the "latitude", is taken between the direction and the reference plane, within the "meridional" plane. For the second angle, it is required to select and fix one of the "meridional" half planes as zero, from which the angle (of "longitude") is measured to the "meridional" half plane containing our direction. It should be noted that this selection of angles to characterize a direction in a given reference frame is chosen by convention, which is especially common in astronomy and geography, and which is used in the following here, as well as in most astronomical databases. Other, equivalent, conventions are possible, e.g. physicists often use instead of the "latitude" angle to the reference plane, the angle between the direction and the "positive" or "north" polar axis (called "co-latitude"; co-latitde = 90 deg - latitude). It depends on taste at last what the reader likes to use, but here we will stay as close to standard astronomical convention as possible. In order to minimize the requirement of case-to-case enumeration of conventions, we also recommend the reader to do the same. The different coordinate systems used are as follows: The horizontal coordinate system is a celestial coordinate system that uses the observer's local horizon as the fundamental plane. This conveniently divides the sky into the upper hemisphere that you can see, and the lower hemisphere that you cannot (because the Earth is in the way). The pole of the upper hemisphere is called the zenith. The pole of the lower hemisphere is called the nadir. The horizontal coordinates are:
Altitude (Alt), sometimes referred to as elevation, that is the angle between the object and the observer's local horizon. Azimuth (Az), that is the angle of the object around the horizon, usually measured from the north point towards the east. In former times, it was common to refer to azimuth from the south, as it was then zero at the same time the hour angle of a star was zero. This assumes, however, that the star (upper) culminates in the south, which is only true for most stars in the Northern Hemisphere. The horizontal coordinate system is sometimes also called the az/el or Alt/Az coordinate system.
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Figure A 1: HORIZONTAL COORDINATES. Azimuth, from the North point (red) -also from the South point toward the West (blue). Altitude, green. One can determine whether altitude is increasing or decreasing by instead considering the azimuth of the celestial object:
if the azimuth is between 0 and 180 (northeastsouth), it is rising. if the azimuth is between 180 and 360 (southwestnorth), it is setting.
Equatorial coordinate system is a widely-used method of mapping celestial objects. It functions by projecting the Earth's geographic poles and equator onto the celestial sphere. The projection of the Earth's equator onto the celestial sphere is called the celestial equator. Similarly, the projections of the Earth's north and south geographic poles become the north and south celestial poles, respectively.
The equatorial coordinate system allows all earthbound observers to describe the apparent location in the sky of sufficiently distant objects using the same pair of numbers: the right ascension and declination. For example, a given star has roughly constant equatorial coordinates. In contrast, in the horizontal coordinate system, a star's position in the sky is different based on the geographical latitude and longitude of the observer, and is constantly changing based on the time of day. Ecliptic coordinate system is a celestial coordinate system that uses the ecliptic for its fundamental plane. The ecliptic is the path that the sun appears to follow across the sky over the course of a year. It is also the projection of the Earth's orbital plane onto the celestial sphere. The latitudinal angle is called the ecliptic latitude or celestial latitude (denoted ), measured positive towards the north. The longitudinal angle is called the ecliptic longitude or celestial longitude (denoted ), measured eastwards from 0 to 360. Like right ascension in the equatorial coordinate system, the origin for ecliptic longitude is the vernal equinox. This choice makes the coordinates of the fixed stars subject to shifts due to the precession, so that always a reference epoch should be specified. Usually epoch J2000.0 is taken, but the instantaneous equinox of the day (called the epoch of date) is possible too.
Figure A 1: Ecliptic Coordinate Sysyem Galactic coordinate system is a celestial coordinate system which is centered on the Sun and is aligned with the apparent center of the Milky Way galaxy. The "equator" is aligned to the galactic plane.
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Similar to geographic coordinates, positions in the galactic coordinate system have latitudes and longitudes.
Figure A 1: Galactic Coorsinate system. An artist's depiction of the Milky Way galaxy, showing the galactic longitude relative to the sun.
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Appendix D Glossary
Aberration (of starlight). Absolute magnitude. Absolute zero. Accelerate. Acceleration of gravity Accretion Active galactic nucleus Active sun Altitude Angstrom (A) Angular diameter Angular momentum Antimatter Apparent magnitude Artificial satellite Associations Astrology Astrometric binary Astronomical unit (AU) Apparent displacement in the direction of the star due to earths orbital motion. Apparent magnitude a star would have at a distance of 10 pc A temperature of -273 C (or 0 K) where all molecular motion stops To change velocity ; either to speed up , slow down or change direction Numerical value of the acceleration produced by the gravitational attraction on an object at the surface of the planet or a star Gradual accumulation of mass, as by a planet forming by the building up of colliding particles in the solar system A violent event in the nucleus of a galaxy; for example a Seyfert galaxy or a quasar The sun in the times of unusual solar activity- spots, flares, add associated phenomena Angular distance above or below the horizon, measured along the vertical circle, to the central object Unit of length equal to 10-8 cm Angle subtended by the diameter of an object A measure of the momentum associated with the motion about an axis or fixed point. Matter consisting of antiparticles; antiprotons (protons with negative rather then positive charge), positrons (positively charged electrons), and antineutrons. A measure of the observed light flux received from the star or object at the earth. A manmade object put into closed orbit about the earth. A loose cluster of stars whose spectral types, motions, or position in the sky indicate that they have probably the common origin The pseudoscience3that treat with supposed influences of the configurations and locations in the sky on the sun, moon and planets on human destiny; a primitive religion having its origin in ancient Babylonia. A binary star in which one component is not observed, but its presence is detected from the orbital motion of the visible component Originally meant to be the semi major axis of the orbit of earth; now defined as the semi major axis of the orbit of a hypothetical body with the mass and period that Gauss assumed for the earth. The semi major axis of the orbot of the earth is 1.000000230 AU The branch of science that treats of the physics and morphology of that part of the universe that lies beyond the earths atmosphere A Part of astronomy that deals principally with the physics of the stars, stellar systems, and interstellar material. Astrophysics also deals with the structure and atmosphere of the sun Spiral galaxy in which the spiral arm begin from the end of a bar, running through the nucleus rather than the nucleus itself A center of mass of two mutually revolving bodies A spectral type b star with emission lines in the spectrum, which are presumed to arise from material ejected from or surroundings of star A theory of cosmology in which the expansion of universe is presumed to have begun with primeval explosion A double star; two stars revolving about each other A presumed final state of evolution for a star, in which all its energy sources are exhausted and it no longer emits any radiation. A hypothetical body whose velocity of escape is equal to or greater than the
Astronomy Astrophysics Barred spiral galaxy Barycenter Be star Big bang theory Binary star Black dwarf Black hole
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Bodes law Bolometric magnitude Busrter cD galaxy Celestial mechanics Cephide variables Ceres Clouds of Magellan Cluster of galaxies Cluster variables (RR Lyrae variables) Color index Color-magnitude diagram Comet Compact galaxy Constellation Corona Corona of galaxy Corpuscular radiation Cosmic background radiation (CBR) Cosmic rays Cosmological constant Cosmological model Cosmology Crab nebula Dark nebula Deceleration parameter (qo) Degenerate gas Density Deuterium Differential galactic rotation
velocity of light; that no radiation can escape. A scheme by which a sequence of numbers can be obtained that gives the approximate distances of the planets from the sun in astronomical units. A measure of the flux of radiation from a star or other object received just outside the earths atmosphere, as it would be detected by a device sensitive to all form of electromagnetic energy. A source of sudden bursts of X rays, believed to be neutron star accreting mass from a companion star, and suddenly igniting that material in nuclear explosions. A supergiant elliptical galaxy frequently found at the Center of the cluster of galaxies. That branch of astronomy which deals with the motions and gravitational influences of the member of the solar system A star that belong to one or two classes (type I and type Ii) of yellow supergiant pulsating stars. Largest of the dwarf planets and first to be discovered. Two neighboring galaxies visible to naked eyes fron southern latitudes A system of galaxies containing from several to thousands of galaxies. A member of a certain large class of pulsating variable stars, all with period less than one day.. these stars are often present in globular star clusters Difference between the magnitude of a star or other object measured in light of two different spectral regions, e.g. photographic minus photo visual magnitudes. Plot of magnitudes (apparent and absolute) of the stars in cluster against their color index. A small body of ice and dusty matter, which revolves about the sun. when the comet comes near the sun, some of its material vaporizes, forming a large coma of tenuous gas, and often a tail A galaxy of small size and high surface brightness. A configuration of stars named for a particular object, person or animal; or the area of sky assigned to a particular configuration Atmosphere of the sun. Extension of the nuclear bulge of the galaxy on the either side of the plane of the milky way; a region containing hot gases that emit X rays. Charged particles, mostly atomic nuclei and electrons, emitted into space by the sun and possibly other objects. The microwave radiation coming from all directions that is believed to be redshifted glow of big bang. Atomic nuclei 9mostly protons) that are observed to strike the earths atmosphere with exceedingly high energy. A term that arises in the development of field equations of general relativity, which represents a repulsive force in the universe. It is often assumed to be zero. A specific model or theory of organization and evolution of universe. A study of organization and evolution of universe. The expanding mass of gas that is the remnant of supernova of 1054. A cloud of interstellar dust that obscures the light of more distant stars and appears as an opaque curtain. A quantity that characterizes the future evolution of the various models of the universe based on general relativity. A gas in which the allowable states for the electrons have been filled; it behaves according to different laws from those that apply to perfect gases The ratio of the mass of the object to its volume. A heavy form of hydrogen, in which the nucleus of each atom consists of one proton and one neutron. The rotation of galaxy, not as solid wheel, but so that parts adjacent to each
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Differential gravitational force Diffuse nebula Disk (of planet or other objects) Disk of Galaxy Diurnal Doppler shift Dwarf (star) Eccentric Eccentricity (of ellipse) Eclipse Eclipsing binary Electromagnetic force Electromagnetic radiation Electromagnetic spectrum Electron Element Elliptical galaxy Emission nebula Energy Equation of state Equator Eruptive variable Event Event horizon Evolutionary cosmology Extragalactic Fission Flare Flare star Fluorescence Flux Force Fusion
other do not always stay close together. The difference between respective gravitational forces exerted on two bodies near each other by a third more distant body. A reflection of emission nebula produced by interstellar matter (not a planetary nebula). The apparent circular shape that a planet ( or the sun , or moon or a star) displays when seen in the sky or viewed telescopically. The central disk or wheel of our Galaxy, superimposed on the spiral structure Daily. Apparent change in wavelength of the radiation from a source due to its relative motion in the line of sight A main sequence star (as oppose to giant or supergiant). The off-center position of the earth in the presumed circular orbits of the sun, moon, and planets in Ptolemaic system. Ratio of the distance between the foci to the major axis. Cutting off of all parts of light of one body by another passing in front of it. A binary star in which the plane of revolution of two stars is nearly edge on to our line of sight, so that the light of one of the star is periodically diminished by the other passing in front of it. One of the four fundamental forces of the nature ; the force that acts on charges and binds the atom and molecules. Radiation consisting of waves propagated through the building up and breaking down of electric and magnetic fields; these include radio, infrared, light, ultraviolet, X rays and gamma rays. The whole array or family of electromagnetic waves. A negatively charged sub atomic particle that normally move about the nucleus of an atom. A substance that cannot be decomposed , by chemical means , into simpler substances. A galaxy whose apparent photometric contours are ellipses, and which contains no conspicuous interstellar material. A gaseous nebula that derives its visible light from the fluorescence of ultraviolet light from a star in ior near the nebula. Ability to do work. An equation relating the pressure, temperature and density of a substance (usually a gas). A great circle on earth , 90 from poles A variable star whose changes in light are erratic or explosive. A point in four dimensional spacetime. The surface through which a collapsing star is hypothesized to pass when its velocity of escape is equal to the speed of light, that is, when star become a black hole. A theory of cosmology that assumes that all parts of universe have the common age and evolved together. Beyond Galaxy. A breakup of heavy atomic nucleus into two or more lighter ones. A sudden and temporary outburst of light from an extended region of solar surface. A member of the class of stars that show occasional, sudden, unpredicted increase in light. The absorption of light of one wavelength and reemission of it at another wavelength; especially the conversion of ultraviolet into visible light. The rate at which the energy or matter crosses a unit area of a surface. That which can change the momentum of a body, numerically, the rate at which the bodys momentum changes. The building up of heavier atomic nuclei from lighter ones.
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Galactic cluster Galactic equator Galactic latitude Galactic longitude Galactic poles Galactic rotation galaxy Galaxy Geodesic Giant (star) Globular cluster Globule Gravitation Gravitational constant G Gravitational energy Gravitational lens Gravitational redshift Gravitational waves Halo (around the sun or moon) Halo (of galaxy) Harmonic law Hayashi line Helio Heliocentric Helium flash Helmholtz-Kelvin contraction Hertzsprung gap Hertzsprung-Russell (H-R)diagram Homogenous star (or stellar model) Horizon (astronomical) Horizon system Horizontal branch
An open: cluster of stars located in the spiral arm s or disk of Galaxy. Intersection of the principal plane of Milky Way with the celestial sphere Angular distance north or south of galactic equator to an object, measures along a great circle passing through the object and the galactic poles. Angular distance measured east or west along the galactic equator from the galactic center, to the intersection of galactic equator with great circle passing through the galactic poles and an object. The poles of the galactic equator; the intersection with the celestial sphere of a line through the observer that is perpendicular to the plane of galactic equator. Rotation of Galaxy. A large number of stars; a typical galaxy contains millions to hundreds of thousands of millions of stars. The galaxy to which the sun and our neighboring stars belong; the Milky Way is the light from remote stars in the Galaxy. The path of the body in spacetime. A star of large luminosity and radius. One of about 120 large star clusters that forms a system of clusters centered on the center of our Galaxy A small, dense, dark nebula; believed to be a possible site of star formation. The tendency of matter to attract itself. The constant of proportionality in Newtons law of gravitation; in metric unit g has the value 6.627x10 -8 dyne.cm2/gm2 Energy that can be released by the gravitational collapse of, or partial collapse of a system. A configuration of celestial objects, one of which provides one or more images of the other by gravitationally deflecting its light. The redshift caused by a gravitational field. The showing of clocks in gravitational field. Oscillations in spacetime propagated by the changes in the distribution of matter. A ring of light around the sun or moon caused by the refraction by the ice crystals of cirrus clouds. The outermost extent of our Galaxy or another, containing the sparse distribution of stars and globular clusters in a more or less spherical distribution. Keplers third law of planetary motion: the cube of semimajor axis of the planetary orbits is proportional to the square of the sidereal periods of the planetary revolutions about the sun. The track of evolution on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram of a completely convective star. Prefix referring to the sun. Centered on the sun. The nearly explosive ignition of helium in the triple alpha process in the dense core of a red giant star. The gradual gravitational contraction of a cloud of or a star, with the release of the gravitational potential energy. A v shaped gap in the upper part of Hertzsprung-Russell diagram where few stable stars are formed. A plot of absolute magnitude against temperature (or spectral class or color index) for a group of stars. A star (or theoretical model of a star) whose chemical composition is same throughout its interior. A great circle in the celestial sphere 90 from the zenith. A system of celestial coordinates (altitude and azimuth) based on the astronomical horizon and north point. A sequence of stars on Hertzsprung-Russell diagram of a typical globular
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Hubble constant Hubble law Hydrostatic equilibrium Inferior planets Interplanetary medium Interstellar dust Interstellar gas Interstellar matter Irregular galaxy Irregular variable Island universe Jovian planets Jupiter Keplers law Kinetic theory (of gases) Latitude Law Law of areas Law of redshift Light Light curve Light year Limiting magnitude Local group Local super cluster luminosity Luminosity class Luminosity function Magnetic fields Magnetosphere Main sequence Major planets Mars Mass Mass luminosity relation Mass radius relation (for white dwarfs)
cluster of approximately constant absolute magnitude (near Mo=0) A constant of proportionality between velocities of the remote galaxies and their distances. The Hubble constant is thought to lie between 50 to 100 km/s per million persac. The law of redshift A balance between the weight of different layers , as in a star or the earths atmosphere, and the pressure that support them. A planet whose distance from the sun is less than the earths. The sparse distribution of gas and solid particles in the interplanetary space Microscopic solid grains, believed to be mostly dielectric compounds of hydrogen and other common elements in interstellar space. Sparse gas in interstellar space. Interstellar gas and dust. A galaxy without rotational symmetry neither a spiral nor elliptical galaxy. A variable star whose light variations do not repeat with regular period. Historical synonym for galaxy. Any of the planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The fifth planet from the sun in the solar system. Three laws, discovered by J. Keplers, that describes the motion of the planets. The science that treat the motion of the molecules that composes gases. A north-south coordinate on the surface of the earth; the angular distance north or south of the equator measured along the meridian passing through a place. A statement of order or relation between phenomena that, under given conditions, is presumed to be invariable. Keplers second law; the radius vector from the sun to any planet sweeps out equal areas in the planets orbital plane in equal interval of time. The relation between radial velocity and distance of the remote galaxy; the radial velocities are proportional to distances of the galaxies. Electromagnetic radiation that is visible to eye. A graph that displays the time variation in light or magnitude of a variable or eclipsing binary star. The distance light travels in vacuum in one year; 1LY = 9.46 x 1027 cm or about 6 x 1012mi. The faintest magnitude that can be observed with a given instrument or under given conditions. The cluster of galaxies to which our Galaxy belongs. The super cluster of galaxies to which the local group belongs. The rate of radiation of electromagnetic energy into space by a star or other object. Classification of a star according to its luminosity for a given spectral class. The relative numbers of stars 9or other objects) of various luminosities or absolute magnitudes. The region of space near a magnetized body within which the magnetic forces can be detected. The region around the earth or a planet occupied by the magnetic fields. A sequence of stars on Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, containing the majority of stars, that runs diagonally from upper left to the lower right. A Jovian planet. Forth planet from the sun in the solar system. A measure of total amount of material in a body; defined either by internal properties of the body or by its gravitational influence. An empirical relation between masses and the luminosities of many (particularly main sequence) stars. A theoretical relation between the masses and radii of white dwarf stars.
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Mean density of matter in the universe Mechanics Mercury Messier Catalogue Milky Way Mira Ceti-type variable star N galaxy nebula Nebular hypothesis Neptune Neutron Star New General Catalogue (NGC) Newtons law Nova Nuclear bulge Nucleosynthesis O-association Open cluster Optical binary Orbit parallax Parsec Perfect cosmological principle Perfect gas law Period density relation Period luminosity relation Photo visual magnitude Planet Planetary nebula Planks constant Population I and II Primeval atom Primeval fireball
The average density of the universe if all its matter and energy could be smoothed out to absolute uniformity. A branch of physics which deals with the behavior of material bodies under the influence of , or in absence of forces. The nearest planet to the sun in the solar system. A catalogue of non stellar objects compiled by Charles Massier. In 1787. The band of light encircling the sky, which is due to many stars and diffused nebulae lying near the plane of Galaxy. Any of the large class of red giant long period or irregular pulsating variable stars, of which Mira is a prototype. A galaxy with a stellar appearing nucleus with the reminder of galaxy appearing as surrounding faint haze. Most or all N galaxies are probably either Seyfert galaxies or quasars. Cloud of interstellar gas or dust. The basic idea that the sun and the planets formed from the same cloud of gas and dust in interstellar space. Eighth planet from the sun in the solar system. A star of extremely high density composed almost entirely of neutrons A catalogue of star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies compiled by J.L.E. Dreyer in 1888. The laws of mechanics and gravitation formulated by Sir. Issac Newton. A star that experiences a sudden outburst of radiant energy, temporarily increasing its luminosity by hundreds to thousands of times. Central part of our Galaxy. The building up of heavy elements from lighter ones. A stellar association in which the stars are predominantly of types O and B. A comparatively loose or open cluster of stars, containing from a few dozen to few thousand members, located in the spiral arm of the disk of the Galaxy; galactic cluster. Two stars at different distances nearly lined up in projection so that they appear close together, but which are not dynamically associated The path of the body that is in revolution about another body or point. Apparent displacement of the object due to the motion of the observer. The distance of an object that would have a stellar parallax of one second of arc; 1 parsec = 3.26 light year. Assumption that on the large scale, universe appears same from every place and at all the time. Certain laws that describes the behavior of the ideal gas; Charles law, Boyles law and the equation of state for the perfect gas. Proportionality between the period and the inverse square root of the mean density for a pulsating star. An empirical relation between the period and luminosities of Cepheid variable star. A magnitude corresponding to the spectral region to which the human eye is most sensitive, but measured by photographic methods with suitable greenand yellow- sensitive emulsion and filter. Any of the eight solid bodies revolving about the sun. A shell of gas ejected from, and enlarging about , a certain kind of extremely hot star. A constant of proportionality relating energy of photon and its frequency. Two classes of stars (and system of stars), classified according to their spectral characteristics, chemical compositions, radial velocities, ages, and location in the Galaxy. A single mass whose explosion (in some cosmological theories) has been postulated to have resulted in all the matter now present in the universe. Extremely hot opaque gas that is presumed to have comprised the entire mass
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Proton sphere Pulsar Pulsating variable Quantum mechanics quasar Radio astronomy Radio galaxy Redgiant Redshift Reflection nebula RR Lyrae variable Satellites Saturn Schwarzschild radius Science Seyfery galaxy Solar activity Solar constant Solar nebula Solar system Solar wind Spacetime Specific gravity Spectral class Spectral sequence Spectroscopic binary Spectrum binary Spiral arms Spiral galaxy star Star cluster Stellar evolution Stellar model
of the universe at the time of or immediately following the big bang; the exploding primeval atom. A surface surrounding the black hole A variable radio source of a small angular size that emits radio pulses in very regular periods that range from 0.03 to 3 seconds. A variable star that pulsates in size and luminosity. The branch of physics that deals with the structure of the atoms and their interactions with each other and with radiation. A stellar appearing object of very high redshift, presumed to be extragalactic and highly luminous an active galactic nucleus. The technique of making astronomical observations in radio wavelengths. A galaxy that emits greater amount of radio radiation than average A large cool star of high luminosity; a star occupying the upper right portion of Hertzsprung-Russell diagram A shift to the longer wavelength of light from remote galaxies; presumed to be produced by Doppler shift. A relatively dense dust cloud in interstellar space that is illuminated by starlight. One of the class of giant pulsating stars with period less than one day; a cluster variable. A body that revolves about the large one. Sixth planet from the sun in the solar system. See event horizon The attempt to find the order in the nature or to find laws that describe the natural phenomena. A galaxy belonging to a class of those with active galactic nuclei; one whose nucleus shows bright emission lines; one of the classes of galaxies first described by c. Seyfert. Phenomena of solar atmosphere; sunspots, plages and related phenomena. Mean amount of solar radiation received per unit time, by a unit area, just outside the earths atmosphere and perpendicular to the direction of the sun; the numerical value is 1.37x 108ergs/cm2.s The cloud of gas and dust from which solar system is presumed to be formed. The system of the sun and the planets, their satellites, the minor planets, comets, meteoroids and other objects revolving around the sun. A radial flow of corpuscular radiation leaving the sun. A system of one time and three spatial coordinates, with respect to which the time and place of the event can be specified. The ratio of the density of the body or substance to that of water. A classification of stars according to characteristics of its spectrum. A sequence of the spectral classes of the stars arranged in order of decreasing temperatures of stars of those classes. A binary star in which the components are not resolved optically, but whose binary nature is indicated by periodic variation in radial velocity, indicating orbital motion. A binary star whose binary nature is revealed by spectral characteristics that can only result from the composite of the spectra of two different stars. Arms of interstellar material and young stars that winds out in the plane from the central nucleus of a spiral galaxy. A flattened, rotating galaxy with pin-wheel like arms of interstellar material and young stars winding out from its nucleus. A self luminous sphere of gas. An assembly of stars held together by their mutual gravitation. The change that takes place in the size, structures and so on , of star as they age The result of theoretical calculations of the run of physical conditions in stellar
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sub dwarf Sub giant sun Super cluster Supergiant Superior planet supernova Surface gravity. T association T Tauri star Terrestrial planets Thermal equilibrium Triple alpha process Uranus Variable stars Velocity of escape Venus Visual binary star Voyagers Wavelength Weight White dwarf Wolf-Rayet star X-ray bursters X-ray stars Zero age main sequence Zodiac
interior. A star of luminosity lower than that of main sequence star of same spectral type. A star of luminosity intermediate between those of main sequence star and normal giants of same spectral type. The star about which earth and other planets. A large region of space (50 to 100 million parsecs across) where matter is concentrated into galaxies, group of galaxies and cluster of galaxies, a cluster of cluster of galaxies. A star of very high luminosity. A planet more distant from the sun than the earth. A stellar outburst or explosion to which a star suddenly increases its luminosity by from hundreds of thousands to hundreds of millions of time. The weight of the unit mass on the surface of the body. A stellar association containing T-Tauri stars. Variable star associated with interstellar matter that shows rapid and erratic change in light. Any of the planets Mercury, Venus, earth and mars, and some times Pluto. A balance between input and outflow of heat in a system A series of two nuclear reactions by which three helium nuclei are built up into one carbon nucleus. Seventh planet from the sun in the solar system. A star that varies in luminosity. The speed with which an object must move in order to enter a parabolic orbit about another body (such as earth) and hence move permanently away from the vicinity of that body. The second planet from the sun in the solar system. A binary star in which two components are telescopically resolved. A series of space crafts that were launched by US in 1977 to explore Jupiter and more distant planets. The spacing of Crests and troughs in a wave train. A measure of force due to gravitational attraction. A star that has exhausted most or all of its nuclear fuel and has collapsed to a very small size; believed to be near its final stage of evolution. One of the classes of the very hot stars that eject shells of gas at very high velocity. Stars other than sun) that emit observable amount of radiation at x- ray frequency. Main sequence for a system of stars that have completed their contraction from interstellar matter , are now deriving all its energy from nuclear reactions, but whose chemical composition has not yet been altered by nuclear reactions. A belt around the sky 18 wide centered on the ecliptic.
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Section A
Attempt all parts of this question. All parts of the question carry equal marks. 1. This Question contains 10 objective types/fill in the blank type / true-false type questions (2X10=20) 1. ______ cannot be defined via other quantities because nothing more fundamental is known at the present. The star derives their energy by ______________ conversion. 2. The heliosphere partially shields the _____________, and planetary magnetic fields. 3. Kepler believed in underlying the harmony in the nature, and he constantly searched for ___________ relations in the celestial realm. 4. The three ways in which teat can be transported; by ________, by __________ and by ______________. 5. ___________ measurements demonstrated the vast separation of the stars in the heavens. 6. To be truly representative of stellar population a ____________should be plotted for all stars within certain distance. 7. No nonrotating white dwarf can be ___________ than the Chandrasekhar limit. 8. Galaxies differ a great deal among themselves but majority fall into two general classes____________ and ____________. 9. Universe is made up of 74% dark energy, 22% of dark matter and 4% of __________ matter.
Section B
2. Attempt any three parts of the following: (3x10=30) a) What do you understand by space science? What was the golden period of space science? b) What is a solar system? When it is thought to be created?
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c) Describe the main characteristics of population I and II stars? d) What is Keplers first law? What correction did the Newton introduced? e) What is Eddington Luminosity?
Section C
Attempt all questions. All questions carry equal marks (5x10=50) 3. Attempt any two parts of the following a) What are metals in astronomy? What is the effect of metallicity on stellar evolution? b) How we can differentiate star clusters? What are its different types? c) What is a nebula? How do you differentiate from the galaxy? 4. Attempt any two of the following: Write the note on: a) Schwarzschild radius b) Globular Clusters c) Open Clusters d) Associations (2X5=10)
5.
Attempt any one of the following: (1X10) a) A cow attempted to jump over the moon but landed into the orbit around the moon. Describe how the cow could be used to determine the mass of the moon?
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Section A
Attempt all parts of this question. All parts of the question carry equal marks. 1. This Question contains 10 objective types/fill in the blank type / true-false type questions (2X10=20) 1. There are _________ overall categories in space science that can generally be described on their own. The _________ of Planets and _______ of dwarf planets are orbited by their moons. 2. Most of the material of the solar system that is not a part of the sun itself is concentrated in the __________. 3. Each planet moves about the sun in a orbit that is an ellipse, with the sun at one focus of the __________. 4. Using the stellar spectrum, astronomers can also determine the _____________ temperature, surface gravity, metallicity and rotational velocity of a star. 5. A substantial number of stars lie above the main sequence of the H-R diagram in the upper right (cool, highly luminous), these are called ___________. 6. The structure of the neutron star is analogous to white dwarf except that neutron stars are much _____________. 7. Typical galaxies range from _________ with as few as ten million (107) stars up to __________ with one trillion (1012) stars, all orbiting the galaxy's center of mass. 8. Radiations from Big Bang indicate high degree of ___________ in universe. Theories of formation of galaxies could be divided into two categories namely ______________ and _____________.
Section B
2. a) b) c) d) Attempt any three parts of the following: (3x10=30) What is the role of Milky Way in its Local Group? How solar system is thought to be originated? What are the two important theories of its origin? What are dwarf planets? Name and give their characteristics? How we can measure the masses of the astronomical bodies?
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Section C
Attempt all questions. All questions carry equal marks (5x10=50) 3. Attempt any two parts of the following a) How the stars evolve from the main sequence to giants? b) What is Black Hole? How it is formed? c) Discuss the properties source of energy of Active Galactic Nuclei? Attempt any two of the following: Write the note on: a) Elliptical galaxy b) Spiral Galaxies c) Barred spiral galaxy d) Irregular Galaxies (2X5=10)
4.
5.
Attempt any one of the following: (1X10) a) Explain Hubble expansion model. b) How you can establish the reliability of Chandrasekhar's formula?
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Section A
Attempt all parts of this question. All parts of the question carry equal marks. 1. This Question contains 10 objective types/fill in the blank type / true-false type questions (2X10=20) Most of the large objects in orbit round the sun lie near the orbit of the earth called ___________ 1) The oldest stars contain few_______, while stars born later have more. 2) If the bodies are permanently associated, their orbit will be _________. If they are not permanently associated, their orbits will be ____________. 3) Stars with high rates of proper motion are likely to be relatively close to the _______, making them good candidates for parallax measurements 4) Supernova ___________ release an enormous amount of energy both in electromagnetic radiation and in the form of violent stellar wind. 5) Novae remain bright for only __________ or weeks and then gradually fade. 6) _________ matter appears to account for around 90% of the mass of most galaxies 7) Future of the universe depends on ____________ of the matter in the space. 8) Ultra-compact dwarf galaxies have recently been discovered that are only ____________ across. 9) The oldest stars contain few_______, while stars born later have more.
Section B
2. Attempt any three parts of the following: (3x10=30) a) What are the major subfields within astronomy? b) Name the disk like regions of the interplanetary medium?
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explain why K= 1 when a is measured in astronomical units and p2 in years? d) What is Spectral Sequence? e) What is Jeans Instability?
Section C
Attempt all questions. All questions carry equal marks (5x10=50) 3. Attempt any two parts of the following a) What is the location of the solar system in the Galaxy? What is solar system's cosmic year? b) Suppose Keplers law applies to the motion of Jupiters satellite Io round that planet, and that one of the satellite has period of 5.196 times as long as another one. What will be the ratio of semimajor axes of their orbits? c) What is the significance of the spectrum of a star in determining its properties? Attempt any two of the following: (2X5=10) Write the note on: (i) Hydrostatic Equilibrium. (ii) Perfect Gas Law: (iii) Minimum Pressure and Temperature in Stellar Interior. (iv) Thermal Equilibrium. Attempt any one of the following: (1X10) a) What are the different scenarios by which a protostar condensation may get started? b) How galaxies are classified?
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