THE SUN & STARS

Morgan George, Samantha Giddinge

What is the Sun made of?
It
is a huge ball of hydrogen and helium gas held together by
gravity
The
gasses get heavier and are more condensed was you
move further towards the core
GRAVITATIONAL CONTRACTION: The contraction of the Sun
when it was formed was slowed down by the energy that was
being heated at its core
GRAVITATIONAL EQUILIBRIUM: the reason the Suns core
stays so hot is because the energy from nuclear fusion
 SOLAR WIND: Charged
particles from off the
surface CONVECTION ZONE:
CORONA: Outer most Moving gases that
gaseous layer of the cause bubbling
thin atmosphere of fast (granulation) which
looks like the surface
moving particles is boiling
CHROMOSPHERE: RADIATION ZONE: Hot,
Middle layer of the dense region where
atmosphere which is energy moves via
pinkish due to protons
hydrogen emission CORE: Hotter and
PHOTOSPHERE: The denser where energy
visible outer surface is made from nuclear
of the Sun. It is so fusion
dense that it is all
we see of the Sun
 Difference between Fusion and
Fission
Fusion Fission

Abigger piece going into Smaller pieces going into a

smaller pieces larger piece
Nuclear Fusion and the Sun
Electrostaticrepulsion is overcome by a strong force a nuclear biding
force taking over and forcing them together

In the Sun, four hydrogens bond with one helium to make energy.
This occurs in a proton-proton chain.
How does heat leave the Sun?
Photonsare absorbed at the top of the radiation zone and
this makes a tower of hot gas that moves the energy to the
surface

Granulation
is also occurring at this point due to the
movement of particles

It
sometimes takes over 100,000 years for a photon to reach
the surface of the Sun because it bounces around so much
 How do we know things about
the Sun?
Just like Earth, we learn through sun quakes or observing
neutrinos which are tiny particles with no charge and receive
little to no interaction with anything and fly directly out of the
Sun

Doppler is also used

Characteristics of a Star
LUMINOSITY: Amount of power a star radiates per second
APPARENT BRIGHTNESS: Amount of starlight that reaches
Earth the energy per second per square meter
Depends on luminosity and distance

How are theses two related?

Divide luminosity by area to get the brightness
Laws of Thermal Radiation
1. Hotter objects emit more light wavelengths
2. Hotter objects emit light at shorter wavelengths
Stellar Spectrum
Dark lines in a stars spectrum correspond to a spectral type
that reveals its temperature
HOTTEST O B A F G K M
COOLEST
Gravitationally Bound Stars
BINARY:Two stars orbiting each other
Almost half the stars in the universe are binary

Types
Visual
Eclipsing
Spectroscopic
Visual Binary
Stars that we can directly observe the orbital motions of
Eclipsing Binary
Inclination
of the orbit is essentially zero making eclipses.
The periodic eclipse implies the orbital period and the
duration tells the radius
Spectroscopic Binary
Able
to find the orbit (period and velocity) by using and
measuring Doppler shifts
Star Mass
Newtons
version of Keplers 3rd law is that direct mass
measurements are possible Only for stars in binary star
systems

Stellar masses run from 0.08 to 150 times the mass of the
Sun

BROWN DWARFS: Objects that are less massive than 0.08

(discovered first in 1995)
High Mass Low Mass
High luminosity Low luminosity
Short lived Long lived
Small radius
Large radius
Red
Blue

*the Sun
 Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram

Normal stars that

are burning
hydrogen reside
in the main
sequence area
Mass goes up
from lower right
to top left
Star Clusters
OPEN CLUSTERS: Several thousand stars, like the disk of the
Milky Way
GLOBULAR CLUSTERS: Hundreds of thousands all packed
tightly together found in the halo of the galaxy

Theirage is found from the main sequence turnoff point

The age is equal to the hydrogen burning lifetime of the
hottest most luminous star that have not evolved into red
giants