Sie sind auf Seite 1von 51

Stellar Evolution Some necessary facts: Atomic Particles Particle proton neutron electron / positron neutrino NUCLEAR ENERGY

Some Principles - In order to produce energy it is necessary that mass is lost in the reaction. This is in accordance with Einsteins Special Relativity Theory which gives the equivalence of mass and energy. E = mc2 where: E = Energy in joule (J) m = mass in kg c = velocity of light in vacuo = 3 x 108 m/s If a quantity of mass m is destroyed in a reaction, then energy E is released. Nuclear energy can be produced by either of two types of reactions: fission, the splitting apart of a massive atomic nucleus, or by fusion of lighter nuclei into a heavier nucleus. Fission is used to produce energy in nuclear reactors and the atomic bomb (or as a detonator for the hydrogen bomb). Controlled fusion has not been achieved on earth. The simplest fusion reaction (proton-proton reaction) requires temperatures in excess of 107 K (10 million kelvin) and occurs in the core of stars. The hydrogen bomb uses an atomic bomb to reach the temperatures necessary for fusion. Eg. Energy output of the sun - The sun produces energy by nuclear fusion in which lighter atoms combine (fuse) to form heavier atoms. In this process the mass of the products of the reaction are less than the mass of the initial products. The process will be looked at in more detail later, but the essential effect is that 4 protons (H nuclei) fuse to produce a single helium (He) nucleus with a loss in mass. ie. 2He4 is less massive then 4 1H1 Mass of sun 2 1030 kg Power radiated 4 1026 W Since 1 W = 1 J/s, the amount of energy radiated per second is 4 1026 J As E = mc2 m = E/c2 = 4 1026/(3 108)2 = 4.4 109 kg In order to maintain its output the sun converts about 4.4 109 kg of its mass to energy every second. Before we panic, this is only 4.4 109/2 1030 = 2.2 10-21 of its mass per second. This would suggest that if the sun were to convert all of its mass into energy it could radiate energy for 1/2.2 10-21 = 4.5 1020 s = 4.5 1020/(60 60 24 365.24) = 1.4 1013 years. Page 1 Symbol p+ n e- / e+ Hydrogen nucleus 1H1 1 0n 0 0 -1e / +1e Note e is also called a particle massless particle

This is much older than the estimated age of the universe which is less than 14 109 years. In reality the sun cannot convert all its mass to energy as it is only in the suns core where the nuclear reactions occur. The sun will live for about 1010 years and we are currently less than half way through this period. We should also note that the suns reaction rate is increasing with age and the sun is expanding slowly and the energy radiated is increasing. In fact the earth will be uninhabitable (too hot) within about 2 x 109 years. Dont pack your bags to leave yet as this is more than 3 times the span of vertebrates on earth. Nuclear Stability The graphh below shows the binding energy/nucleon (protons + neutrons in the nucleus) and is a measure of the stability of the nucleus.

The graph shows that 26Fe56 is the most stable nucleus. Elements lighter than Fe56 may fuse together (Nuclear Fusion) to produce a more stable element and release energy. The end product of fusion reactions in stars is Fe which forms in the core of large stars. Elements heavier than Fe56 can split into smaller fragments (Nuclear Fission) to produce more stable products. Massive stars can synthesize elements up to iron (Fe) in their cores. Elements beyond Fe are produced in supernova explosions. At this stage in the suns life it produces energy by the proton - proton chain of reactions which commenced in the suns core when the temperature exceeded 107 K: + 1H1 1H2 + +1e0 (deuterium + positron) - a positron is an anti-electron 1 3 + 1H 2He +-ray 3 3 4 1 2He + 2He 2He + 2 1H
1 1H 2 1H

Effectively: 6 1H1 2He4 + 2 1H1 + Energy or 4 1H1 2He4 + Energy Mass of 4 hydrogen atoms = 4 1.007825 = 4.031300 u Page 2

u = atomic mass units 6C12 = 12.000 u Mass of helium atom = 4.00260 u The mass loss = 0.02870 u which is converted to energy via E = mc2 The CNO Cycle The PP chain is the most important energy production mechanism for normal stars having masses comparable to the Sun or less. For more massive stars the PP chain can still occur, but there is another sequence of reactions that becomes more favourable for converting hydrogen to helium that is called the CNO cycle. The Reactions of the CNO Cycle In stars the primary constituents are hydrogen and helium, but there are usually (much) smaller amounts of heavier elements present. In particular there can be Carbon (C), Nitrogen (N), and Oxygen (O) ions. If these are present, they can participate in the sequence of reactions illustrated in the figure below.

The CNO cycle In this diagram + indicates a beta decay and the notation (a,b) means that the nucleus captures the particle labeled by a and emits the particle labeled by b. This Carbon-Nitrogen-Oxygen or CNO cycle converts hydrogen to helium according to the following sequence of reactions: 1. 2. 3. 4, 5. 6. C-12 captures a proton and emits a gamma-ray, producing the N-13 isotope. N-13 is unstable and beta () decays to the C-13 with a half-life of approximately 10 minutes. C-13 captures a proton (p+)and emits a gamma-ray () to become N-14. N-14 captures another proton and emits a gamma-ray to become O-15. O-15 undergoes a beta decay to become N-15. N-15 captures a proton and emits an alpha-particle (that is, a nucleus of helium 2He4) to close the cycle and return to C-12.

Similar sequences are possible starting with isotopes of Nitrogen or Oxygen. As for the PP chain, the energy released in the CNO cycle is contained in the energy of the particles and gamma-rays produced in the steps of the cycle. Page 3

The Triple-Alpha Process The Triple-Alpha Process follows hydrogen burning in both solar-type stars and high-mass stars transforming Helium into Carbon. (N.B. Stars with M < 0.4 M will not reach high enough temperatures for the 3-alpha process.) The next stage in energy generation in stars is the Triple-Alpha Process which requires 3 alpha particles (4He nuclei) to collide simultaneously to form Carbon: 4He + 4He + 4He 12C This reaction requires both very high temperatures (T > 108 K) and very high densities which will occur only after the star has exhausted its store of hydrogen and has a core of nearly pure helium. Only stars with masses greater than about 0.4M will reach temperatures high enough to ignite the Triple-alpha process. Advanced Nuclear Burning Stages Following the Triple-alpha process there are a variety of reactions which may occur depending on the mass of the star. Three general principles influence the roles that these nuclear burning stages may play: Successive nuclear burning stages, involving more massive nuclei with higher charges, will require increasingly high temperatures to overcome the increased electrical repulsion. The amount of energy released by each successive reaction stage decreases so that later nuclear burning stages become shorter and shorter. Once fusion reactions have produced an iron core, further fusion reactions no longer produce energy, but absorb energy from the stellar core. As we shall see this may have a catastrophic effect on the star as it nears the end of its life. In stars like the sun, Carbon produced by helium burning via the Triple-alpha process will react with available helium nuclei to produce oxygen: + 4He 16O + gamma-ray with some production of Neon, but the extreme electrical repulsion makes it difficult to produce nuclei more massive than Neon via helium-capture.
12C 16O

+ 4He 20Ne + gamma-ray

In more massive stars with temperatures greater than about 5 108 K, Carbon burning will occur. This is just one of a variety of possible reactions:
12C

+ 12C 24Mg + gamma-ray

And above 109 K, Oxygen burning may occur; again with a variety of possible reaction products (e.g.Sulfur, as shown, Magnesium, Silicon & Phosphorus):
16O

+ 16O 32S + gamma-ray

Finally, at temperatures greater than about 3 109 K, Silicon burning occurs through a series of reactions that produce nuclei near the iron-peak, that is near 56Fe on the Periodic Table, the element with the most strongly bound nucleus.

Page 4

The Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram The Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram, pioneered independently by Elnar Hertzsprung and Henry Norris Russell, plots Luminosity as a function of Temperature for stars. Below is the Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) Diagram for stars near the sun:

It is readily apparent that the H-R Diagram is not uniformly populated, but that stars preferentially fall into certain regions of the diagram. The majority of stars fall along a curving diagonal line called the main sequence but there are other regions where many stars also fall. We will see that the H-R Diagram is an extremely useful way to follow the changes that take place as a star evolves. Most stars are on the Main Sequence because that is where stars spend most of their lives, burning hydrogen to helium through nuclear reactions. As stars live out their lives, changes in the structure of the star are reflected in changes in stars temperatures, sizes and luminosities, which cause them to move in tracks on the H-R Diagram. A schematic H-R Diagram is shown on the next page.

Page 5

10 10 10

Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram
60 ? S.G.

4 3

10 C.V. P.N. 4 2 N 1.5 1


M ain Se qu en ce

R.G.

Absolute Luminosity ( = 1)

10

10

10 1 10 10
-1

-2

0.5 0.1 W.D. 0.04 0.01 ?


8000 80000 6000 4000 60000 40000 20000 100000 10000 2000

10

-3

10 -4 10
-5

Surface Temperature (K)


O A B Spectral Class F G K M

S.G. C.V. N

Super Giants Cepheid Variables Novae

P.N. Stars associated with Planetary Nebulae R.G. Red Giants W.D. White Dwarfs

Page 6

Evolution of a Star of Solar Mass The evolutionary track on the H-R Diagram below shows the Life Cycle of a star with Solar mass and the steps are described on the following pages.

Page 7

STELLAR EVOLUTION Massive stars evolve very quickly (the largest stars live only about 10000 years), while small stars evolve very slowly. We will follow the evolution of a star of solar mass as a typical example. The star starts its life in a cloud of interstellar gas (nebula) in which small pockets of (mainly) hydrogen may undergo gravitational collapse if the pocket is sufficiently large. Such a pocket is termed a PROTOSTAR and appears as a dark spot in the nebula (Bok Globules). Time 0 Protostar formed (m 2) from nebula gas at approximately 100 K. Greater than 1012 km across. Gravitational collapse continues with the temperature in core increasing visible as Bok Globules. Contracted to 1.6 x 108 km across. Core 50000 K. Hydrogen ionized so that core consists of two gases protons and electrons. Point 1 Diameter 56 x 106 km. Core 150000 K. Surface 3500 K. Highly luminous comparable to red giant. Makes first appearance on H-R Diagram.

1 yr

3 yr

100 yr 1000 yr 104 yr 105 yr 10 106 yr 27 106 yr

Point 2 Point 3 Point 4 Point 5 Point 6

Gravitational collapse continues. Temperature in core rises. Diameter 2.4 106 km. Core temperature 10 106 K Hydrogen burning (proton-proton chain) commences. Star settles onto main sequence. Diameter approximately 1.2 106 km. Surface temperature 6000 K. Outward radiation pressure balances gravity and star enters stable phase on main sequence. Present time. Diameter has increased slowly to 1.6 106 km with slight increase in the luminosity. Luminosity has increased to approximately 1.5 times present and helium is building up in the centre to form a core. Diameter 2 106 km. Star has completed 90% of its life and starts to move of main sequence. Between points 9 & 10 the luminosity remains constant. The hydrogen in the core is exhausted and the helium core contracts while its temperature rises. Hydrogen burning continues in an expanding shells surrounding helium core. Diameter increases to 4.2 106 km, while surface temperature falls to about 4200 K. Beyond point 10 the hydrogen burning in the shell surrounding the helium core increases rapidly causing the star to expand into the red giant region.

Point 7

4.5 109 yr 9.2 109 yr

Point 8 Point 9

10.3 109 yr

Point 10

Page 8

10.6 109 yr

Point 11

Star becomes red giant. Over 99% of life completed. One-quarter of the stars mass is now packed into the helium core of diameter 30000 km, while envelope has expanded up to 160 106 km (Orbit of earth 150 106 km). The star passes through the red giant phase very rapidly.

Point 12

The helium in the core becomes ionized as temperature rises to the critical the value of 100 106 K when helium burning commences to produce carbon. The pressure becomes so great at the centre that the core cannot expand so that the temperature continues to rise out of control. This phase which lasts for a few hours is termed the helium flash. After these few hours the temperature becomes so high that the core explodes, causing the core to expand rapidly thus reducing its temperature. This stops the helium burning reaction and reduces the hydrogen burning in the shell surrounding the core causing a reduction in the energy output of the star.

Point 13

Gravitational collapse takes over and the core temperature rises again. Helium burning is initiated again when the temperature reaches 100 106 K about 10000 years after the helium flash. Due to lower density the core can expand and helium burning continues in an analogous fashion to the hydrogen burning phase. Helium burning results in a core of carbon building up the centre of the star. The helium in the core is exhausted and from point 14 to 15 helium burning continues in expanding shell about the carbon core, sending the star into the red giant region again after a few million years have elapsed since the helium flash. The star may go through several flashes in reaching point 16. Between 16 and 17 the star forms a planetary nebula as reactions in outer helium burning shell become so rapid that the outer regions of the star are blown off as an expanding gas cloud.

Point 14

Point 15 Point 16 Point 17

Beyond point 17 the helium is exhausted and the star rapidly collapses under gravity to form a white dwarf comparable to the size of the earth. Without any further reactions occurring the white dwarf cools off to become a cold body of planet like dimensions but with an incredibly high density. Novae: Certain white dwarfs are observed to flare up (up to 10000 times brighter than normal) with a regular period of 30 to 50 years. Some of the larger novae are estimated to have a period of the order of centuries. The spectra of novae shows an absorption spectrum (similar to class A or F) but with a blue shift equivalent to speeds of 100 to 1500 km/s approaching the earth due to an expanding shell of gas. Novae appear to be only associated with white dwarfs in a close binary system. Matter pulled off the surface of the larger partner deposits on the surface of the white Page 9

dwarf. This causes instability and the nova outburst is caused by a nuclear explosion which blows excess matter into space. Stars Greater Than Solar Mass: In the gravitation collapse of a large star (greater than approximately 5 solar masses) the core reaches the critical temperature of 600 x 106 K and which carbon burning commences thus halting the contraction. Events now follow very rapidly (probably not more than a few years). When all the available carbon is consumed, gravitational collapse sets in again causing a further increase in core temperature initiating further reactions followed by further contractions as each element is consumed. In this way element up to iron are built up by the fusion reactions, however iron has the most stable nucleus of all elements and no further fusion reactions are possible. With all its fuel expended the star enters its last few minutes of life. Gravity takes over causing a catastrophic collapse. At the high temperatures existing in these last minutes all the heavier element are built up by neutron and proton capture. When the star reaches its maximum density it rebounds producing a super nova explosion which violently throws approximately half its mass off into space (eg. Crab Nebula). During the explosion the light output may be greater than that of the entire galaxy. The remnants from super nova explosions are available for the formation of Population 1 (new) stars. What is left behind after the super nova explosion? The state of the core that remains after the super nova depends on the remaining mass. Two to five solar masses: At the high pressures and temperatures of the final collapse protons and electrons fuse together to form neutrons and the entire star collapses to a rapidly rotating object of approximately 10 to 20 km diameter known as a neutron star. Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars. Greater than five solar masses: General relativity predicts that the collapse will proceed further; virtually crushing the star down to a negligible diameter to form a black hole.

Page 10

Appendix 1: Notes on Black Holes, White Holes, Worm Holes, White Dwarf What is a black hole? Loosely speaking, a black hole is a region of space that has so much mass concentrated in it that there is no way for a nearby object to escape its gravitational pull. Since our best theory of gravity at the moment is Einstein's general theory of relativity, we have to delve into some results of this theory to understand black holes in detail, but let's start of slow, by thinking about gravity under fairly simple circumstances. Suppose that you are standing on the surface of a planet. You throw a rock straight up into the air. Assuming you don't throw it too hard, it will rise for a while, but eventually the acceleration due to the planet's gravity will make it start to fall down again. If you threw the rock hard enough, though, you could make it escape the planets gravity entirely. It would keep on rising forever. The speed with which you need to throw the rock in order that it just barely escapes the planet's gravity is called the "escape velocity." As you would expect, the escape velocity depends on the mass of the planet: if the planet is extremely massive, then its gravity is very strong, and the escape velocity is high. A lighter planet would have a smaller escape velocity. The escape velocity also depends on how far you are from the planet's centre: the closer you are, the higher the escape velocity. The Earths escape velocity is 11.2 km/s, while the Moon's is only 2.4 km/s. Now imagine an object with such an enormous concentration of mass in such a small radius that its escape velocity was greater than the velocity of light. Then, since nothing can go faster than light, nothing can escape the object's gravitational field. Even a beam of light would be pulled back by gravity and would be unable to escape. The idea of a mass concentration so dense that even light would be trapped goes all the way back to Laplace in the 18th century. Almost immediately after Einstein developed general relativity, Karl Schwarzschild discovered a mathematical solution to the equations of the theory that described such an object. It was only much later, with the work of such people as Oppenheimer, Volkoff, and Snyder in the 1930s, that people thought seriously about the possibility that such objects might actually exist in the Universe. These researchers showed that when a sufficiently massive star runs out of fuel, it is unable to support itself against its own gravitational pull, and it should collapse into a black hole. In general relativity, gravity is a manifestation of the curvature of spacetime. Massive objects distort space and time, so that the usual rules of geometry don't apply anymore. Near a black hole, this distortion of space is extremely severe and causes black holes to have some very strange properties. In particular, a black hole has something called an event horizon. This is a spherical surface that marks the boundary of the black hole. You can pass in through the horizon, but you cant get back out. In fact, once you've crossed the horizon, you're doomed to move inexorably closer and closer to the 'singularity' at the centre of the black hole. You can think of the horizon as the place where the escape velocity equals the velocity of light. Outside of the horizon, the escape velocity is less than the speed of light, so if you fire your rockets hard enough, you can give yourself enough energy to get away. But if you find yourself inside the horizon, then no matter how powerful your rockets are, you can't escape. The horizon has some very strange geometrical properties. To an observer who is sitting still somewhere far away from the black hole, the horizon seems to be a nice, static, unmoving spherical surface. But once you get close to the horizon, you realize that it has a very large velocity. In fact, it is moving outward at the speed of light! That explains why it is easy to cross the horizon in the inward direction, but impossible to get back out. Since the horizon is moving

Page 11

out at the speed of light, in order to escape back across it, you would have to travel faster than light. You can't go faster than light, and so you can't escape from the black hole. Once you're inside of the horizon, spacetime is distorted so much that the coordinates describing radial distance and time switch roles. That is, "r", the coordinate that describes how far away you are from the centre, is a time like coordinate, and "t" is a space like one. One consequence of this is that you can't stop yourself from moving to smaller and smaller values of r, just as under ordinary circumstances you can't avoid moving towards the future (that is, towards larger and larger values of t). Eventually, you're bound to hit the singularity at r = 0. You might try to avoid it by firing your rockets, but it's futile: no matter which direction you run, you can't avoid your future. Trying to avoid the centre of a black hole once you've crossed the horizon is just like trying to avoid next Thursday. Incidentally, the name black hole was invented by John Archibald Wheeler, and seems to have stuck because it was much catchier than previous names. Before Wheeler came along, these objects were often referred to as frozen stars. Ill explain why below. How big is a black hole? There are at least two different ways to describe how big something is. We can say how much mass it has, or we can say how much space it takes up. Let's talk first about the masses of black holes. There is no limit in principle to how much or how little mass a black hole can have. Any amount of mass at all can in principle be made to form a black hole if you compress it to a high enough density. We suspect that most of the black holes that are actually out there were produced in the deaths of massive stars, and so we expect those black holes to weigh about as much as a massive star. A typical mass for such a stellar black hole would be about 10 times the mass of the Sun, or about 1031 kg. Astronomers also suspect that many galaxies harbour extremely massive black holes at their centers. These are thought to weigh about a million times as much as the Sun, or 1036 kg. The more massive a black hole is, the more space it takes up. In fact, the Schwarzschild radius (which means the radius of the horizon) and the mass are directly proportional to one another: if one black hole weighs ten times as much as another, its radius is ten times as large. A black hole with a mass equal to that of the Sun would have a radius of 3 km. So a typical 10-solar-mass black hole would have a radius of 30 km, and a million-solar-mass black hole at the centre of a galaxy would have a radius of 3 million km. Three million km may sound like a lot, but it's actually not so big by astronomical standards. The Sun, for example, has a radius of about 700,000 km, and so that super massive black hole has a radius only about four times bigger than the Sun. What would happen to me if I fell into a black hole? Let's suppose that you get into your spaceship and point it straight towards the million-solarmass black hole in the centre of our galaxy. Starting from a long way away from the black hole, you just turn off your rockets and coast in. What happens? At first, you don't feel any gravitational forces at all. Since you're in free fall, every part of your body and your spaceship is being pulled in the same way, and so you feel weightless. (This is exactly the same thing that happens to astronauts in Earth orbit: even though both astronauts and space shuttle are being pulled by the Earth's gravity, they don't feel any gravitational force because everything is being pulled in exactly the same way.) As you get closer and closer to the centre of the hole, though, you start to feel "tidal" gravitational forces. Imagine that your feet are closer to the centre than your head. The gravitational pull gets stronger as you get closer to the centre of the hole, so your feet feel a stronger pull than your head does. As a result you feel Page 12

"stretched." (This force is called a tidal force because it is exactly like the forces that cause tides on earth.) These tidal forces get more and more intense as you get closer to the center, and eventually they will rip you apart. For a very large black hole like the one you're falling into, the tidal forces are not really noticeable until you get within about 600,000 km of the centre. Note that this is after you've crossed the horizon. If you were falling into a smaller black hole, say one that weighed as much as the Sun, tidal forces would start to make you quite uncomfortable when you were about 6000 km away from the centre, and you would have been torn apart by them long before you crossed the horizon. (That's why we decided to let you jump into a big black hole instead of a small one: we wanted you to survive at least until you got inside.) What do you see as you are falling in? Surprisingly, you don't necessarily see anything particularly interesting. Images of faraway objects may be distorted in strange ways, since the black hole's gravity bends light, but that's about it. In particular, nothing special happens at the moment when you cross the horizon. Even after you've crossed the horizon, you can still see things on the outside: after all, the light from the things on the outside can still reach you. No one on the outside can see you, of course, since the light from you can't escape past the horizon. How long does the whole process take? Well, of course, it depends on how far away you start from. Let's say you start at rest from a point whose distance from the singularity is ten times the black hole's radius. Then for a million-solar-mass black hole, it takes you about 8 minutes to reach the horizon. Once you've gotten that far, it takes you only another seven seconds to hit the singularity. By the way, this time scales with the size of the black hole, so if you'd jumped into a smaller black hole, your time of death would be that much sooner. Once you've crossed the horizon, in your remaining seven seconds, you might panic and start to fire your rockets in a desperate attempt to avoid the singularity. Unfortunately, it's hopeless, since the singularity lies in your future, and there's no way to avoid your future. In fact, the harder you fire your rockets, the sooner you hit the singularity. It's best just to sit back and enjoy the ride. My friend Penelope is sitting still at a safe distance, watching me fall into the black hole. What does she see? Penelope sees things quite differently from you. As you get closer and closer to the horizon, she sees you move more and more slowly. In fact, no matter how long she waits, she will never quite see you reach the horizon. In fact, more or less the same thing can be said about the material that formed the black hole in the first place. Suppose that the black hole formed from a collapsing star. As the material that is to form the black hole collapses, Penelope sees it get smaller and smaller, approaching but never quite reaching its Schwarzschild radius. This is why black holes were originally called frozen stars: because they seem to 'freeze' at a size just slightly bigger than the Schwarzschild radius. Why does she see things this way? The best way to think about it is that it's really just an optical illusion. It doesn't really take an infinite amount of time for the black hole to form, and it doesn't really take an infinite amount of time for you to cross the horizon. (If you don't believe me, just try jumping in! You'll be across the horizon in eight minutes, and crushed to death mere seconds later.) As you get closer and closer to the horizon, the light that you're emitting takes longer and longer to climb back out to reach Penelope. In fact, the radiation you emit right as you cross the horizon will hover right there at the horizon forever and never reach her. You've long since passed through the horizon, but the light signal telling her that won't reach her for an infinitely long time.

Page 13

There is another way to look at this whole business. In a sense, time really does pass more slowly near the horizon than it does far away. Suppose you take your spaceship and ride down to a point just outside the horizon, and then just hover there for a while (burning enormous amounts of fuel to keep yourself from falling in). Then you fly back out and rejoin Penelope. You will find that she has aged much more than you during the whole process; time passed more slowly for you than it did for her. So which of these two explanations (the optical-illusion one or the time-slowing-down one) is really right? The answer depends on what system of coordinates you use to describe the black hole. According to the usual system of coordinates, called "Schwarzschild coordinates," you cross the horizon when the time coordinate t is infinity. So in these coordinates it really does take you infinite time to cross the horizon. But the reason for that is that Schwarzschild coordinates provide a highly distorted view of what's going on near the horizon. In fact, right at the horizon the coordinates are infinitely distorted (or, to use the standard terminology, "singular"). If you choose to use coordinates that are not singular near the horizon, then you find that the time when you cross the horizon is indeed finite, but the time when Penelope sees you cross the horizon is infinite. It took the radiation an infinite amount of time to reach her. In fact, though, you're allowed to use either coordinate system, and so both explanations are valid. They're just different ways of saying the same thing. In practice, you will actually become invisible to Penelope before too much time has passed. For one thing, light is "redshifted" to longer wavelengths as it rises away from the black hole. So if you are emitting visible light at some particular wavelength, Penelope will see light at some longer wavelength. The wavelengths get longer and longer as you get closer and closer to the horizon. Eventually, it won't be visible light at all: it will be infrared radiation, then radio waves. At some point the wavelengths will be so long that she'll be unable to observe them. Furthermore, remember that light is emitted in individual packets called photons. Suppose you are emitting photons as you fall past the horizon. At some point, you will emit your last photon before you cross the horizon. That photon will reach Penelope at some finite time -- typically less than an hour for that million-solar-mass black hole -- and after that she'll never be able to see you again. (After all, none of the photons you emit after you cross the horizon will ever get to her.) If a black hole existed, would it suck up all the matter in the Universe? Heck, no. A black hole has a "horizon," which means a region from which you can't escape. If you cross the horizon, you're doomed to eventually hit the singularity. But as long as you stay outside of the horizon, you can avoid getting sucked in. In fact, to someone well outside of the horizon, the gravitational field surrounding a black hole is no different from the field surrounding any other object of the same mass. In other words, a one-solar-mass black hole is no better than any other one-solar-mass object (such as, for example, the Sun) at "sucking in" distant objects. What if the Sun became a black hole? Well, first, let me assure you that the Sun has no intention of doing any such thing. Only stars that weigh considerably more than the Sun end their lives as black holes. The Sun is going to stay roughly the way it is for another five billion years or so. Then it will go through a brief phase as a red giant star, during which time it will expand to engulf the planets Mercury and Venus, and make life quite uncomfortable on Earth (oceans boiling, atmosphere escaping, that sort of thing). After that, the Sun will end its life by becoming a boring white dwarf star. If I were you, I'd make plans to move somewhere far away before any of this happens. I also wouldn't buy any of those 8-billion-year government bonds.

Page 14

But I digress. What if the Sun did become a black hole for some reason? The main effect is that it would get very dark and very cold around here. The Earth and the other planets would not get sucked into the black hole; they would keep on orbiting in exactly the same paths they follow right now. Why? Because the horizon of this black hole would be very small -- only about 3 km - and as we observed above, as long as you stay well outside the horizon, a black hole's gravity is no stronger than that of any other object of the same mass. Is there any evidence that black holes exist? Yes. You cant see a black hole directly, of course, since light cant get past the horizon. That means that we have to rely on indirect evidence that black holes exist. Suppose you have found a region of space where you think there might be a black hole. How can you check whether there is one or not? The first thing you'd like to do is measure how much mass there is in that region. If you've found a large mass concentrated in a small volume, and if the mass is dark, then it's a good guess that there's a black hole there. There are two kinds of systems in which astronomers have found such compact, massive, dark objects: the centres of galaxies (including perhaps our own Milky Way Galaxy), and X-ray-emitting binary systems in our own Galaxy. According to a recent review by Kormendy and Richstone, eight galaxies have been observed to contain such massive dark objects in their centres. The masses of the cores of these galaxies range from one million to several billion times the mass of the Sun. The mass is measured by observing the speed with which stars and gas orbit around the centre of the galaxy: the faster the orbital speeds, the stronger the gravitational force required to hold the stars and gas in their orbits. (This is the most common way to measure masses in astronomy. For example, we measure the mass of the Sun by observing how fast the planets orbit it, and we measure the amount of dark matter in galaxies by measuring how fast things orbit at the edge of the galaxy.) These massive dark objects in galactic centres are thought to be black holes for at least two reasons. First, it is hard to think of anything else they could be: they are too dense and dark to be stars or clusters of stars. Second, the only promising theory to explain the enigmatic objects known as quasars and active galaxies postulates that such galaxies have supermassive black holes at their cores. If this theory is correct, then a large fraction of galaxies -- all the ones that are now or used to be active galaxies -- must have supermassive black holes at the centre. Taken together, these arguments strongly suggest that the cores of these galaxies contain black holes, but they do not constitute absolute proof. Two very recent discoveries have been made that strongly support the hypothesis that these systems do indeed contain black holes. First, a nearby active galaxy was found to have a "water maser" system (a very powerful source of microwave radiation) near its nucleus. Using the technique of very-long-baseline interferometry, a group of researchers was able to map the velocity distribution of the gas with very fine resolution. In fact, they were able to measure the velocity within less than half a light-year of the centre of the galaxy. From this measurement they can conclude that the massive object at the centre of this galaxy is less than half a light-year in radius. It is hard to imagine anything other than a black hole that could have so much mass concentrated in such a small volume. (This result was reported by Miyoshi et al. in the 12 January 1995 issue of Nature, vol. 373, p. 127.) A second discovery provides even more compelling evidence. X-ray astronomers have detected a spectral line from one galactic nucleus that indicates the presence of atoms near the nucleus that are moving extremely fast (about 1/3 the speed of light). Furthermore, the radiation from these atoms has been redshifted in just the manner one would expect for radiation coming from near the horizon of a black hole. These observations would be very difficult to explain in any other way besides a black hole, and if they are verified, then the hypothesis that some galaxies contain Page 15

supermassive black holes at their centres would be fairly secure. (This result was reported in the 22 June 1995 issue of Nature, vol. 375, p. 659, by Tanaka et al.) A completely different class of black-hole candidates may be found in our own Galaxy. These are much lighter, stellar-mass black holes, which are thought to form when a massive star ends its life in a supernova explosion. If such a stellar black hole were to be off somewhere by itself, we wouldn't have much hope of finding it. However, many stars come in binary systems -- pairs of stars in orbit around each other. If one of the stars in such a binary system becomes a black hole, we might be able to detect it. In particular, in some binary systems containing a compact object such as a black hole, matter is sucked off of the other object and forms an "accretion disk" of stuff swirling into the black hole. The matter in the accretion disk gets very hot as it falls closer and closer to the black hole, and it emits copious amounts of radiation, mostly in the X-ray part of the spectrum. Many such "X-ray binary systems" are known, and some of them are thought to be likely black-hole candidates. Suppose you've found an X-ray binary system. How can you tell whether the unseen compact object is a black hole? Well, one thing you'd certainly like to do is to estimate its mass. By measuring the orbital speed of visible star (together with a few other things), you can figure out the mass of the invisible companion. (The technique is quite similar to the one we described above for supermassive black holes in galactic centres: the faster the star is moving, the stronger the gravitational force required to keep it in place, and so the more massive the invisible companion.) If the mass of the compact object is found to be very large very large, then there is no kind of object we know about that it could be other than a black hole. (An ordinary star of that mass would be visible. A stellar remnant such as a neutron star would be unable to support itself against gravity, and would collapse to a black hole.) The combination of such mass estimates and detailed studies of the radiation from the accretion disk can supply powerful circumstantial evidence that the object in question is indeed a black hole. Many of these "X-ray binary" systems are known, and in some cases the evidence in support of the black-hole hypothesis is quite strong. In a review article in the 1992 issue of Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Anne Cowley summarized the situation by saying that there were three such systems known (two in our galaxy and one in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud) for which very strong evidence exists that the mass of the invisible object is too large to be anything but a black hole. There are many more such objects that are thought to be likely black holes on the basis of slightly less evidence. Furthermore, this field of research has been very active since 1992, and the number of strong candidates by now is larger than three. How do black holes evaporate? This is a tough one. Back in the 1970's, Stephen Hawking came up with theoretical arguments showing that black holes are not really entirely black: due to quantum-mechanical effects, they emit radiation. The energy that produces the radiation comes from the mass of the black hole. Consequently, the black hole gradually shrinks. It turns out that the rate of radiation increases as the mass decreases, so the black hole continues to radiate more and more intensely and to shrink more and more rapidly until it presumably vanishes entirely. Actually, nobody is really sure what happens at the last stages of black hole evaporation: some researchers think that a tiny, stable remnant is left behind. Our current theories simply aren't good enough to let us tell for sure one way or the other. As long as I'm disclaiming, let me add that the entire subject of black hole evaporation is extremely speculative. It involves figuring out how to perform quantum-mechanical (or rather quantum-field-theoretic) calculations in curved spacetime, which is a very difficult task, and which gives results that are essentially impossible to test with experiments. Physicists think that we have the correct theories to make predictions about black hole evaporation, but without experimental tests it's impossible to be sure. Page 16

Now why do black holes evaporate? Here's one way to look at it, which is only moderately inaccurate. (I don't think it's possible to do much better than this, unless you want to spend a few years learning about quantum field theory in curved space.) One of the consequences of the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics is that it's possible for the law of energy conservation to be violated, but only for very short durations. The Universe is able to produce mass and energy out of nowhere, but only if that mass and energy disappear again very quickly. One particular way in which this strange phenomenon manifests itself goes by the name of vacuum fluctuations. Pairs consisting of a particle and antiparticle can appear out of nowhere, exist for a very short time, and then annihilate each other. Energy conservation is violated when the particles are created, but all of that energy is restored when they annihilate again. As weird as all of this sounds, we have actually confirmed experimentally that these vacuum fluctuations are real. Now, suppose one of these vacuum fluctuations happens near the horizon of a black hole. It may happen that one of the two particles falls across the horizon, while the other one escapes. The one that escapes carries energy away from the black hole and may be detected by some observer far away. To that observer, it will look like the black hole has just emitted a particle. This process happens repeatedly, and the observer sees a continuous stream of radiation from the black hole. Won't the black hole have evaporated out from under me before I reach it? We've observed that, from the point of view of your friend Penelope who remains safely outside of the black hole, it takes you an infinite amount of time to cross the horizon. We've also observed that black holes evaporate via Hawking radiation in a finite amount of time. So by the time you reach the horizon, the black hole will be gone, right? Wrong. When we said that Penelope would see it take forever for you to cross the horizon, we were imagining a non-evaporating black hole. If the black hole is evaporating, that changes things. Your friend will see you cross the horizon at the exact same moment she sees the black hole evaporate. Let me try to describe why this is true. Remember what we said before: Penelope is the victim of an optical illusion. The light that you emit when you're very near the horizon (but still on the outside) takes a very long time to climb out and reach her. If the black hole lasts forever, then the light may take arbitrarily long to get out, and that's why she doesn't see you cross the horizon for a very long (even an infinite) time. But once the black hole has evaporated, there's nothing to stop the light that carries the news that you're about to cross the horizon from reaching her. In fact, it reaches her at the same moment as that last burst of Hawking radiation. Of course, none of that will matter to you: you've long since crossed the horizon and been crushed at the singularity. Sorry about that, but you should have thought about it before you jumped in. What is a white hole? The equations of general relativity have an interesting mathematical property: they are symmetric in time. That means that you can take any solution to the equations and imagine that time flows backwards rather than forwards, and you'll get another valid solution to the equations. If you apply this rule to the solution that describes black holes, you get an object known as a white hole. Since a black hole is a region of space from which nothing can escape, the timereversed version of a black hole is a region of space into which nothing can fall. In fact, just as a black hole can only suck things in, a white hole can only spit things out. White holes are a perfectly valid mathematical solution to the equations of general relativity, but that doesn't mean that they actually exist in nature. In fact, they almost certainly do not exist,

Page 17

since there's no way to produce one. (Producing a white hole is just as impossible as destroying a black hole, since the two processes are time-reversals of each other.) What is a wormhole? So far, we have only considered ordinary "vanilla" black holes. Specifically, we have been talking all along about black holes that are not rotating and have no electric charge. If we consider black holes that rotate and/or have charge, things get more complicated. In particular, it is possible to fall into such a black hole and not hit the singularity. In effect, the interior of a charged or rotating black hole can "join up" with a corresponding white hole in such a way that you can fall into the black hole and pop out of the white hole. This combination of black and white holes is called a wormhole. The white hole may be somewhere very far away from the black hole; indeed, it may even be in a "different Universe" -- that is, a region of spacetime that, aside from the wormhole itself, is completely disconnected from our own region. A conveniently-located wormhole would therefore provide a convenient and rapid way to travel very large distances, or even to travel to another Universe. Maybe the exit to the wormhole would lie in the past, so that you could travel back in time by going through. All in all, they sound pretty cool. But before you apply for that research grant to go search for them, there are a couple of things you should know. First of all, wormholes almost certainly do not exist. As we said above in the section on white holes, just because something is a valid mathematical solution to the equations doesn't mean that it actually exists in nature. In particular, black holes that form from the collapse of ordinary matter (which includes all of the black holes that we think exist) do not form wormholes. If you fall into one of those, you're not going to pop out anywhere. You're going to hit a singularity, and that's all there is to it. Furthermore, even if a wormhole were formed, it is thought that it would not be stable. Even the slightest perturbation (including the perturbation caused by your attempt to travel through it) would cause it to collapse. Finally, even if wormholes exist and are stable, they are quite unpleasant to travel through. Radiation that pours into the wormhole (from nearby stars, the cosmic microwave background, etc.) gets blueshifted to very high frequencies. As you try to pass through the wormhole, you will get fried by these X-rays and gamma rays. WORM HOLES Worm Holes are the hypothetical theoretical connection between a black hole and a white hole. Specifically defined, a black hole is a region in space where the velocity of escape exceeds the speed of light in that medium. When a star dies and begins to shrink a name is given to the size below which it must shrink in order to become a black hole. The name for this size is the star's "Schwarzchild Radius" and the primary factor which determines whether or not a star will shrink 2GM RG 2 below it's Schwarzchild Radius is its initial mass. c Schwarzschild Radius also called gravitational radius, distance that defines the size at which a spherical astronomical object such as a star becomes a black hole. A black hole is an object so dense that not even light can escape the pull of its gravitational force. If an object collapses to within its Schwarzschild radius, it becomes a black hole. The radius is named after German astronomer Karl Schwarzschild, who derived the first model of a black hole in 1916. Nothing, not even a particle moving at the speed of light, can escape the gravitational pull of a black hole.

Page 18

Therefore, the Schwarzschild radius is the largest radius that a body with a specific mass can have and still keep light from escaping. The Schwarzschild radius of a black hole marks its event horizon, or the boundary past which light can enter but not escape. Astronomers believe that once an object collapses to within its Schwarzschild radius, it continues collapsing until it becomes a singularity, or a point with infinite density and a radius of zero. The sun has a mass of 2x1030 kg a radius of about 700,000 km (about 400,000 mi). Its Schwarzschild radius is about 3 km. If the sun were to collapse into a sphere with a radius of less than 3 km, light from the sun would be trapped and the sun would become a black hole. The sun, however, is not massive enough for it to collapse to this size and become a black hole. An object with a mass equal to that of the earth would have a Schwarzschild radius of about 3 mm. Some astronomers believe that any black hole smaller than this would be relatively unstable and would evaporate quickly, releasing gamma rays. Astronomers have speculated that the mysterious sources of celestial gamma ray bursts may be evaporating primordial black holes. Only stars that expire with around 3 times a much mass as the sun can hope to attain black hole status. In order for a star to have much of a chance of having a mass this high after it's inner nuclear fire is extinguished it must have begun its life with more than 50 times the mass of the sun. The name for this lower mass limit which a star must have after death to become a black hole is "Oppenheimer's Limit." A star much smaller than this will not have enough mass to collapse into a black hole and will have a very different death in store for it that is not within the scope of our discussion here. If a star does shrink below it's Schwarzchild Radius there is a name assigned to the imaginary sphere at the Schwarzchild Radius, the "Event Horizon." At twice the distance of the Event Horizon is the "Photon Sphere," or the distance at which a photon may be caught in orbit around a black hole. This discussion of escape speeds and trapped photons should prove somewhat startling and/or disturbing. It leads to the simple question, "if not even light can escape, and no particle with mass can go faster than light, then what happens to anything caught in the pull of a black hole?" The simple answer is that it never escapes, it is drawn into the black hole with an unescapable gravitational force. However there are other possibilities, and it is here that we look to relativity for an explanation. From a relativistic viewpoint, a black hole is a location of extreme distortion in the space time continuum. Looking at things this way, every object of mass in the universe creates a distortion in space time, the more massive the object, the larger the distortion. A black hole is different in its definition however, because it is a distortion so extreme that it has infinite curvature, it is actually a tear in space time. Under this definition at the center of every black hole is a space time singularity. What this singularity leads to or could be used for are completely theorized, but will be discussed in more depth later. WHITE HOLES White Holes are the theoretical exact opposite of black holes, and their existence is implied by a negative square root solution to the Schwarzchild metric. The Schwarzchild metric is based on General Relativity, which is time symmetric. This means that the most technical definition of white hole is simply a black hole running backwards in time. It is a location in space time that, instead of being impossible to escape, is impossible to reach.

Page 19

Under the definition given by the solution to this equation they repel everything, including massive particles as well as photons, nothing can enter them. We have never discovered a white hole, and given these properties we believe that they would be rather difficult to miss. Furthermore, an object that acts in this manner directly violates the second law of thermodynamics which states that heat naturally flows from a region of high temperature to a region of low temperature. The contradiction this causes is that any object with heat should eventually dissipate it's heat energy to its surroundings, and a white hole by definition never runs out of heat or mass, thus standing in violation of every other major law of physics we have in order to hold true to the second law of thermodynamics. This, however, only applies to our universe. The same equations that suggest the existence of white holes also seem to imply that they exist in a universe parallel to our own, and would exist connected to a black hole by way of a worm hole in order to complete the Schwarzchild geometry suggested by the equation which predicted the existence of black holes. This worm hole joining 2 separate universes is known as the Einstein-Rosen bridge and is one of the most fascinating concepts in theoretical physics. While the concept of this connection is extremely exciting we know very little about it, as we have no white holes to observe and black holes are extremely hard to detect given their light absorbing nature. Given our current understanding of black holes and white holes we are not even sure of such a connection could exist, or if it did, where it would take us. Current knowledge does not even give enough information to suggest if such a link would even be to somewhere else in our own universe. Unfortunately, current theory does not even allow for the ultimate destination of a worm hole to be much of a worry because it is believed that passing through a worm hole is impossible. Instant death would be a near certainty given any imaginable method of protection, and no matter the circumstances return would be impossible given everything we know about black holes and the way they would interact with white holes. The only method where death would not be a near certainty is if a worm hole could somehow be stabilized for longer than the brief amount of time under which they are naturally believed to remain stable. This is an impossibility given our current understanding of science and would obviously be grander in scope than anything ever attempted by mankind in the history of Earth. It is theoretically possible, although highly improbable that a worm hole could somehow be stabilized to allow safe passage through it. The only theoretical way this could be done that I was able to find involves using 'exotic matter', or matter unlike any we know, highly exotic matter. In order to stabilize the worm hole the throat of the singularity would have to be threaded with this matter which would be spherical in nature. The properties this matter would have to have would be negative mass, and yet still be capable of exerting a positive surface pressure. It must have these two properties for very specific reasons, the negative mass ensures the the throat of the worm hole lies outside the protected region and the positive surface pressure is the property that prevents the throat of the worm hole for collapsing. These properties of matter are not arbitrary or purely theoretical, we have determined this is the type of space-time geometry most likely needed to produce a stable worm hole. Einstein's equations then specify what the energy-momentum content of matter must be in an area to produce the needed geometry. From as general a standpoint as a matter such as this can be, these are the properties normally suggested to be needed to stabilize a worm hole. As a side note, the notion of negative mass matter is certainly rather disturbing, however because of vacuum fluctuations near a black hole it is not considered to be an impossibility.

Page 20

What is a white dwarf star? A white dwarf is the final stage of the evolution of a star that is between 0.07 and 1.4 solar masses. White dwarfs are supported by electron degeneracy and they are found to the lower left of the main sequence of the HR (Hertsprung Russel) diagram. White dwarfs represent a stable phase in which stars of less than 1.4 solar masses live out the rest of their lives. White dwarf stars got their name because of the white color of the first few that were discovered. They are characterized by a low luminosity, a mass close to that of our sun, and a radius only that of the earth. Because of their large mass and small area these stars are extremely dense and compact objects with average densities approaching up to 1,000,000 times that of water. White dwarfs have low luminosities. Because of this they can be observed only within a few hundred parsecs from the earth (1 parsec = 3.26 light years). Facts About White Dwarfs All stars are burning at some point in their lives but eventually a star stops burning. When the stars stop burning the stars with less than 1.4 solar masses shrink in size. As they shrink they start to grow very faint. But regardless of their color they are called white dwarfs. The value of 1.4 solar masses is known as the Chandrasekhar limit. Chandrasekhar reasoned that something must be holding up material in white dwarfs against gravity, something known as electron degeneracy. When star contracts, electrons get close together and there is a continued increase in their resistance to being pushed even closer. This process is related to pressure. At great densities, pressure from the degenerate electrons is sufficiently great, it balances the force of gravity and the star stops contracting. So electron degeneracy stops the white dwarf form contracting and compresses the gas of the star. What this means is that a white dwarf is incredibly dense. A mass the size of the sun is compressed into a volume only the size of the earth. This is so dense that a teaspoon of white dwarf weighs ten tons. What Is the Chandrasekhar Limit? The Chandrasekhar limit is the maximum theoretically possible mass for a stable white dwarf star. The limiting value was named after the Indian-born astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who formulated it in 1930. Using Einsteins special theory of relativity and the principles of quantum physics, Chandrasekhar showed that it is impossible for a white dwarf star, which is supported solely by a degenerate gas of electrons, to be stable if its mass is greater than 1.4 times the mass of the Sun. If such a star does not completely exhaust its thermonuclear fuel, then this limiting mass may be slightly larger. For example, all direct mass determinations of actual white dwarf stars have resulted in masses slightly less than the Chandrasekhar limit. A star that ends its nuclear-burning lifetime with a mass greater than the Chandraskehar limit must become either a neutron star or a black hole. What Happens In Time? What happens in time? Pressure from degenerate electrons doesnt depend on temperature so stars are stable even though no more energy is ever generated within them. Because of electron degeneracy they cant contract further. However, they still have stored energy that will radiate for a few billion years. Once the star burns out completely or stops radiating the white dwarf has reached the final stage of evolution and it becomes a cold and inert stellar remnant sometimes called a black dwarf. Our Sun is destined to die as a white dwarf. But, before that happens, it will evolve into a red giant. When the sun becomes a red giant it will engulf Mercury and Venus in the process and at the same time it will blow away the earths atmosphere and boil its oceans. This will make earth uninhabitable but this process will take billions of years to develop.

Page 21

Appendix 2: Illustrations of stages in stellar evolution

The Horsehead Nebula and NGC 2024 in Orion This distinctive red emission nebula is the result of radiation from Sigma Orionis interacting with the surface of a dusty cloud of gas from which projects the dark shape of the head of a horse. Sigma is the second brightest star in the picture and is at about the same distance from the Sun as the nebula. The brightest star here is Zeta Orionis, easily visible to the unaided eye as the easternmost star in the line of three that form Orion's Belt. Partly obscured by the glare of Zeta is the curious yellowish nebula NGC 2024, whose energy comes from a star hidden in the dark lane, while other nebulae simply reflect the light of embedded hot stars and appear blue. Copyright:(c) 1979 ROE/Anglo-Australian Telescope Board, photograph by David Malin Credit:D. F. Malin

Page 22

A Group of Bok globules seen against IC 2944 Against the uniform, bright backdrop of IC 2944 we see a small group of dark clouds of the kind known as "Bok globules." They are named for the Dutch-American astronomer who first drew attention to them as the possible sites of star formation. These dark markings are discrete, opaque dust clouds, the largest containing enough material to form several stars the mass of the Sun. The globules are not some line-of-sight coincidence; the brightened rim of the largest clearly shows it to be associated with the nebulosity of IC 2944. Bok globules are yet another manifestation of the interaction of dust clouds with energetic radiation from hot stars. Copyright:(c) 1992 Anglo-Australian Telescope Board, photograph by David Malin

Page 23

Star formation region in Orion constellation Star formation region in Orion constellation Copyright: Credit:National Observatories Optical Astronomy

Page 24

The stars that excite the Trifid Nebula Surrounding the central stars in the famous Trifid Nebula (M20) is a cloud of patchy dust and gas. Though dust and gas are common throughout the Milky Way, the gas itself can only be seen at visible wavelengths when it is illuminated by stars whose output of ultraviolet light is sufficient to cause it to glow with the red color characteristic of hydrogen. Such hot stars are found at the heart of the Trifid Nebula, and they illuminate a gas cloud against which the dust lanes can be seen. This nebula is at a distance of about 3,000 light years. Copyright:(c) 1982 Anglo-Australian Telescope Board, photograph by David Malin Credit: D. F. Malin

Page 25

The Orion Nebula, M42 and M43 At a distance of 1,500 light years, the Orion Nebula is the nearest bright nebula to us and can be seen with the naked eye. The inner regions are glowing mainly in the green light of ionized oxygen, which together with some red emission from hydrogen give the center of the nebula a yellowish color. The energy for this spectacular display comes from the small cluster of stars, the Trapezium, in the brightest part of the nebula. Copyright:(c) 1981 Anglo-Australian Telescope Board, photograph by David Malin Credit: D. F. Malin

Page 26

The Trapezium stars in the Orion Nebula In the nearby Orion nebula are some of the youngest stars known, and though many are still hidden from view, the brightest form a group that can be seen with binoculars. They make up the central "star" of the three groups, forming the sword-handle of Orion. This group is known as the Trapezium cluster and they provide much of the energy which makes the brilliant Orion Nebula visible. The nebula and its clutch of young stars are at a distance of about 1,300 light years. Copyright:(c) 1981 Anglo-Australian Telescope Board, photograph by David Malin Credit: D. F. Malin

Page 27

Young stars in the Orion Nebula A Hubble Space Telescope view of a small portion of the Orion Nebula (0.14 light years across) reveals five young stars. Four are surrounded by gas and dust that was trapped as the stars formed. These are possibly protoplanetary disks or "proplyds," which may go on to evolve into planetary systems. Those closest to the hottest stars in their cluster look bright, while one further away is seen dark. Copyright: Credit: C. R. O'Dell and NASA

Page 28

View of a protoplanetary disk A Hubble Space Telescope view of a very young star (between 300,000 and a million years of age) surrounded by material left over from the star's formation. The cool, reddish star is about one fifth the mass of our Sun. The dark disk, seen in silhouette against the background of the Orion Nebula, is possibly a protoplanetary disk from which planets will form. The disk contains at least seven times the material as our Earth. The disk is 56 billion miles across (90 billion kilometers), or 7.5 times the diameter of our Solar System.The Orion Nebula starbirth region is 1,500 lightyears away, in the direction of the constellation Orion the Hunter. Copyright: C.R. O'Dell/Rice University, NASA

Page 29

Beta Pictoris (ground-based optical image) Beta Pictoris is a 4th magnitude star which emits strongly in the infrared. It is surrounded by a disk of material of the kind believed in time to result in the creation of a planetary system. Copyright: Credit:National Optical Astronomy Observatories

Page 30

Planet around the star Beta Pictoris This image from Hubble Space Telescope shows for the first time the inner region of a 200-billion mile diameter dust disk around the star Beta Pictoris. Top: This is a visible light image of the disk, which appears spindlelike because it is tilted nearly edge-on to our view. The disk is made up of microscopic dust grains of ices and silicate particles. The central clearing is occupied by one or more planets. The bright star, which lies at the center of the disk, is blocked out in this image. Bottom: Falsecolor is applied through image processing to accentuate details in the disk structure. Hubble reveals that the pink-white inner edge of the disk is slightly tilted from the plane of the outer disk (red-yellow-green) as identified by a dotted line. A simple explanation is that a large planet is pulling on the disk. It is not possible to see the planet directly because it is close to the star, and perhaps a billion-times fainter. Copyright: Credit:C. Burrows, Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) the European Space Agency (ESA), J. Krist (STScI), the WFPC2 IDT team, and NASA

Page 31

Jets from a young star This Hubble Space Telescope image reveals new secrets of star birth as revealed in a pair of eerie spectacular jet of gas the star has ejected by a young star. Top: Tip to tip, this jet spans slightly more than a light-year. The fountainhead of this structure -- the young star -- lies midway between the jet, and is hidden from view behind a dark cloud of dust. The nearly symmetrical blobs of gas at either end are where the jet has slammed into interstellar gas. Bottom left: A close-up of a region near the star reveals a string of glowing clumps of gas, ejected by the star in machine-gun like burst fashion. Bottom right: This arrowhead structure is a classic bowshock pattern produced when high-speed material encounters a slower-speed medium. Copyright: Credit:J. Hester (Arizona State University), the WFPC 2 Investigation Definition Team, and NASA

Page 32

The Rosette Nebula and open cluster NGC 2244 The Rosette Nebula exhibits a striking circular symmetry which gives it the appearance of a partlyopened rose, an impression enhanced further by the rich red hues seen in this color photograph. Near the center of the nebula is a cluster of blue stars catalogued as NGC 2244. These stars are responsible for making the nebula visible and for creating the hollowed-out central cavity. This cluster of stars formed from the gas that now surrounds it less than a million years ago, and is thus very young by astronomical standards. The gas and dust at the center of the nebula have been forced away from the bright stars by radiation pressure and the intense stellar wind often associated with very hot stars, forming a hollow centered on the cluster. Copyright:(c) 1983 Royal Observatory Edinburgh Credit: D. F. Malin

Page 33

The visible surface of the Sun The surface of the Sun, seen in visible light, is called the photosphere. Most of the Sun's radiation is emitted from the photosphere in visible and near-infrared light. Above this layer of opaque gas is the Sun's atmosphere, which is composed of extremely hot gas, is transparent to visible light, and emits radiation primarily in x-ray and ultraviolet wavelengths. This white-light photograph of the Sun taken on 19 February 1982 shows several sunspots including a very unusual spiral sunspot. Copyright:(c) Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Credit:Courtesy of National Optical Astronomy Observatories

Page 34

Total eclipse of the Sun in 1970 The solar corona during the total eclipse of the Sun on 7 March 1970. Copyright: Credit: National Optical Astronomy Observatories

Page 35

Outer solar corona in false color from Skylab False-color emphasizes the structure of the outer solar corona as seen from Skylab in 1973. From this orbiting space station, the outer corona was monitored continuously for a period of 9 months with a coronagraph that blocked out the light of the Sun's disk. Copyright: Credit: NASA/JPL

Page 36

A gargantuan solar prominence One of the most spectacular solar prominences ever observed. Imaged in far ultraviolet light by Skylab in December 1973, it spanned 367,000 miles (588,000 km) across the surface of the Sun. Copyright: Credit:A NASA/JPL PHOTO

Page 37

Planetary nebula, the Helix, NGC 7293 On deep photographs this beautiful planetary nebula has a diameter of about half a degree - the same apparent size as the Moon in the sky. The AAT color picture reveals the various levels of excitation within the shell of matter ejected from the central star, the greenish middle portion being from ionized oxygen, the outer red due to nitrogen and hydrogen. The cloud of gas is extremely tenuous and close inspection will show many faint galaxies of stars in the background. The Helix nebula is about 400 light years away from Earth, or about 100 times more distant than the nearest stars. Copyright: Credit: D.F.Malin

Page 38

Ring Nebula in Lyra Ring nebula, M57, NGC 6720, in the constellation Lyra. A spherical shell of glowing gas surrounds a central, hot star in this Kitt Peak 4-meter telescope photograph. The nebula was formed by the nova of the central star - a sudden release of a large portion of the star's mass. The Ring Nebula was the first planetary nebula discovered, so called because of its spherical appearance through telescopes in the past. It has a diameter of one-half light year and is located 5,000 light years from Earth. Copyright: Credit: National Optical Astronomy Observatories

Page 39

A complex planetary nebula, NGC 6543 (HST) A Hubble Space Telescope image of one of the most complex planetary nebulae ever seen, NGC 6543, taken in September 1994. A possible explanation for tangle of shells, jets and knots of gas is that the central "star" may be a binary system. NGC 6543 is 3,000 light years away and estimated to be 1,000 years old. Copyright: Credit: J.P.Harrington, K.J.Borkowsky and NASA

Page 40

Nova Cygni in May 1993 and January 1994 as seen from the HST The development of the shell of gas surrounding Nova Cygni 1992, which erupted on 19 February 1992, in Hubble Space Telescope images made on 31 May 1993 and shortly after the December 1993 servicing mission. The nova was caused by a thermonuclear explosion on the surface of white dwarf star in a double star system. Copyright: Credit:F. Paresce, R. Jedrzejewski and NASA

Page 41

Artist's impression of an X-ray burster An artist's impression of a double star in the globular cluster NGC 6624 which is a source of powerful bursts of X-ray emission. It consists of a neutron star, surrounded by a disk of material, partnered by a white dwarf that is shedding material onto the disk across a narrow bridge. The Hubble Space Telescope detected ultraviolet emission from the disk in 1993. Copyright: Credit: D. Berry/ STScI

Page 42

Crab Nebula in Taurus Computer-reconstructed image of the Crab Nebula, NGC 1952, from exposures made through three separate filters (blue, visual and red) and recombined in the Image Reduction Analysis Facility (IRAF). The green light is from the green emission line of doubly ionized oxygen at 5007 angstroms. The blue light is the nearinfrared continuum around 9500 angstroms. All three pictures were taken at the 0.9-meter telescope at Kitt Peak, with an RCA CCD, September 1984. Copyright: Credit: National Optical Astronomy Observatories

Page 43

Crab Nebula This true-color picture was taken using Ektachrome film at the prime focus of the Kitt Peak 4-m telescope in 1973. In this relatively short exposure, the pulsar is clearly visible (just below the center). The red filaments are tendrils of excited gas, emitting strong H-alpha radiation, still bearing mute testimony to the violence of the supernova explosion that created both the nebula and the pulsar. One of the more spectacular historical supernovae, it was recorded by Chinese astronomers in the year 1054 AD. Labeled the Crab from original perceptions of its shape, which no longer seem compelling, it is actually in the constellation Taurus. Copyright: Credit: National Optical Astronomy Observatories/W. Schoening/N. Sharp

Page 44

Veil Nebula in Cygnus Veil nebula, NGC 6979, in the constellation Cygnus. The large loop of gas was ejected about 30-40,000 years ago from a supernova, a star's final death throes. This Kitt Peak National Observatory 4-meter Mayall telescope photograph shows the north central portion of the nebula. It is also known as the Cygnus Loop. Copyright: Credit: National Optical Astronomy Observatories

Page 45

Part of the Vela supernova remnant About 120 centuries ago an inconspicuous star in the constellation of Vela brightened by about 100 million times to rival the Moon as the brightest object in the night sky. This photograph shows a portion of the northwestern quadrant of an expanding nebulous shell, which now surrounds the site of the explosion. Near the center of the nebula is the Vela pulsar, a rapidly-spinning neutron star only a few kilometers in diameter, the remnant of the star that exploded. This tiny object spins about 11 times a second and is among the faintest stars ever studied at optical wavelengths, a far cry from its brief glory as one of the brightest stars ever seen. Copyright:(c) 1979 Royal Observatory Edinburgh Credit: D. F. Malin

Page 46

Around Supernova composite

1987A;

before

and

after

The image of the star that exploded to create supernova 1987a (arrowed) is clearly elongated. This does not necessarily indicate any particular peculiarity or a close companion, rather it is the effect of stars by chance aligned along similar lines of sight. Several other examples can be seen in this picture and other, different, blended images are seen in the photograph of the same field taken two weeks after the supernova appeared. The difference in image quality (seeing) between these pictures is an effect of the Earth's atmosphere which was steadier when the plates used to make the pre-supernova picture were taken. Copyright:(c) 1987 Anglo-Australian Telescope Board, photograph by David Malin Credit: D. F. Malin

Page 47

Supernova 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud Supernova 1987A, in the Large Magellanic Cloud, appears as a very bright object near the center of this fine photograph made by Marcelo Bass at Cerro Tololo on 2 March 1987, using the Curtis-Schmidt telescope. Copyright: Credit: National Optical Astronomy Observatories

Page 48

The light echo of Supernova 1987A The brilliant flash of light from supernova 1987A took about 170,000 years to reach us from the LMC. Some light was deflected by two sheets of dust near the supernova, and is seen after the star has faded away because the scattered light took a longer path to reach us. The dust responsible for the rings seen here lies in two distinct sheets, about 470 and 1300 light years from the supernova. The color picture was made by subtracting images on plates taken before and after the supernova and is an accurate reproduction of the color of the extremely faint light echo, which in turn reflects the yellow color of the supernova when it was at its brightest, in May 1987. Copyright:(c) 1989 Anglo-Australian Telescope Board, photograph by David Malin

Page 49

Supernova 1987A after 4 years The red "star" marks the site of supernova 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Its red image is the expanding remnant of a massive star and can be seen to be slightly elongated in this picture. The elongation is in the same direction and about the same size as the wellknown Hubble Space Telescope picture of the ellipse around the supernova, and both represent the expanding shock wave from the supernova interacting with material that was ejected from the star before it exploded. This picture is effectively a one-minute exposure, very short by astronomical standards. Copyright:(c) 1992 Anglo-Australian Telescope Board, photograph by David Malin

Page 50

Supernova 1987A in February 1994 (HST) A Hubble Space Telescope image taken in February 1994 showing three rings of glowing gas encircling the site of Supernova 1987A, which exploded in February 1987. Copyright: Credit:C. Burrows and NASA

Page 51

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen