Stars are born. They live. And then they die.
Do we gaze at the stars because we are human?
Or are we human because we gaze at the stars?
Stars born in molecular clouds such as found in Orion.
(c.f., space.com for story on biogenic molecules in such clouds, detected by the eyes of NASA's Spitzer Space telescope)
Interstellar cloud evolution [Chaisson Fig.19.5] giving rise to star
Hubble telescope website has a tour of Orion Nebula. Also search Hubble site for "orion protoplanetary disk"
To date 138 planetary systems, according to the Paris Observatory's Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia
Upsilon Andromedae system of planets around a star
c.f., Chap 15 (section 6 for few pages of material on "extra-solar planets")
Hydrogen burning (4H -> He + energy)
Helium burning (3He -> C + energy)
Helium burning and nucleosynthesis (Table and c.f., also Chaisson Fig.21.5)
Evolutionary track of a 1-solar mass sun-like star.
Consult the various H-R diagrams in Chaisson (Fig. 20.7, Fig. 20.12), and the inner transparency overlay #3 in centerfold of textbook. This evolution is discussed in Chaisson as 14 presented across 2 chapters
(on pages 505 - 541)
Steps to know:
Short movie of the Sun's Life Cycle (local)
Summary of the evolution of stars with different masses (table)
Simplest form of "death" is Planetary Nebula and remnant White Dwarf.
If star leaves a core greater than 1.4 solar mass (Chandrasekhar Limit) then its fate is not a simple Planetary Nebula and remnant White Dwarf... but even stranger: a Supernova death leading to a remnant Neutron Star or Black Hole.
Summary of the evolution of stars with different masses (table)
Summary of models for star death showing their renmants (flow chart )
Supernovas
Short movie of Stellar Death for massive star (local)
Black Holes
Summary of evolution of stars with different masses (table 15.3)
Summary of models for star death (Navigator figure, chap16)
End effect is a curious natural cycle (recycling) of cosmic material (Chaisson Fig. 21.19)
Chaisson text:
Tufts' Cosmic Evolution site
The Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope detects supernova
Hubble Space Telescope (of course) for supernova pics
Chandra X-Ray observatory supernova remnant pics
NASA educational site on black holes
Gravity Probe B has a nice introduction to gravity as curvature in spacetime
Bruce Balick's webpage on Planetary Nebulae and the future of our solar system. Nice site with great science writing, e.g., this description of what Earthlings would see as Sun tossed off a planetary nebulae and left behind a remnant white dwarf:
"Here on Earth, we'll feel the wind of the ejected gasses sweeping past, slowly at first (a mere 5 miles per second!), and then picking up speed as the spasms continue (eventually to reach 1000 miles per second!! The remnant Sun will rise as a dot of intense light, no larger than Venus, more brilliant than 100 present Suns, and an intensely hot blue-white color hotter than any welder's torch. Light from the fiendish blue "pinprick" will braise the Earth and tear apart its surface molecules and atoms. A new but very thin "atmosphere" of free electrons will form as the Earth's surface turns to dust."
Document URL: http://www.uh.edu/~jclarage/astr3131/lectures/10/10.html
