Astr

1102: Astronomy II
Summer 2011 Louisiana State University

Our Sun
h9p://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/

Our Sun
To us on planet Earth, the Sun is one of the most important celesEal objects. It provides Earth with light and warmth which is what prevents the water from freezing and consequently exEnguishing the possibility of life to exist. But in the context of astronomy, as we shall see eventually, the Sun is quite an ordinary star; fairly typical in its size, shape, temperature and luminosity. The Sun is essenEally a big ball of extremely hot gas, undergoing thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen in its core. Before we study our Sun and its properEes, let us rst study stars in general and then compare properEes of other stars to that of the Sun.

Luminosity & Magnitudes

Luminosity & Magnitudes

Luminosity & Magnitudes

Luminosity & Magnitudes

Luminosity & Magnitudes

Luminosity & Magnitudes

Luminosity & Magnitudes

Luminosity & Magnitudes

Apparent Magnitudes

Note that the smaller the magnitude the brighter the object!

Absolute Magnitudes

Magnitudes

Magnitudes

Luminosity & Magnitudes

Distance Modulus
Apparent magnitude

Color, Luminosity and Magnitude

When we observe stars in the night sky, we note that the
Stars have dierent brightness and, Stars have dierent colors.

We have seen that the dierent colors of the stars is basically a funcEon of the surface temperature of that star. According to Wiens law:

And we know that the dierent wavelengths correspond to dierent colors:

Color, Luminosity and Magnitude

What about the dierent (apparent) brightness of stars. It primarily depends on:

The intrinsic brightness of the star and, The distance of the star from the observer.

We have seen that the brightness of a star is more commonly given in terms of its Luminosity how much energy is the star emi\ng per second. What does the stars luminosity depend on? To answer this, remember the Stefan-Boltzmann law, which gives us the energy ux (energy per unit area per second):

So the rate at which energy is emi9ed (i.e., the luminosity) is a funcEon of the temperature and of the area of the emi\ng surface. MathemaEcally,

Color, Luminosity and Magnitude

Thus, a relaEvely cool star can have a relaEvely large luminosity only if it has a large radius, whilst a hot star can sEll have low luminosity if its very small. The luminosity, the radius, the temperature and the mass of a star are intrinsic properEes of the star. So also is the absolute magnitude. On the other hand, the brightness and the apparent magnitude depend on other things as well, like the distance of the star from us. Knowing the intrinsic properEes, we can classify stars into dierent categories based on their luminosiEes, temperature, color etc. By doing spectroscopy, astronomers can determine the chemical composiEon and the temperature of the stars surface. Once the temperature is known, one can calculate the luminosity, if we know either the radius of the star or if we know the distance to it.

Color, Luminosity and Magnitude

If we know the distance, then we can use the distance modulus formula to calculate the absolute magnitude of the star:

and from the absolute magnitude, one can calculate the intrinsic luminosity:

Problems
A certain type of variable star is known to have an average absolute magnitude of 0.0. Such stars are observed in a parEcular star cluster, which has an apparent magnitude of +14.0. What is the distance to this star cluster? Stars A and B are both equally bright as seen from Earth, but A is 60 pc away while B is 15 pc away.

Which star has the greater luminosity? How many Emes is it greater than the other?

Calculate the luminosity of the Sun by looking up its Radius and its surface temperature. Compare it with the known value of the Suns luminosity. The bright red star Betelgeuse in the Orion constellaEon is 60,000 Emes more luminous than the Sun. The surface temperature of this star is about 3500 K. Calculate Betelgeuses radius in terms of the Solar radius.