Star

Template:TOC-right A star is usually made of gas and a substance known as plasma. The Sun (Sol) is a star. A portion of the stars, however, those called white dwarfs and neutron stars, are composed of tightly packed atoms or subatomic particles and are much more dense than anything on Earth.

Stars range widely in size. Our Sun’s radius is about 432,000 miles (695,500 kilometres). Because there are other stars that are much larger, our sun is classified as a dwarf star. Stars classified as supergiants have a radius about 1,000 times that of the sun. Neutron stars are the smallest stars and have a radius of only about 6 miles (10 kilometres).

Our sun is a single star. However, about 75 % of all stars are binary stars, two stars that orbit each other. The star nearest our sun, Proxima Centauri, is part of a multiple-star system which includes Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B.

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Categories

Characteristics of stars

Stars are categorised by their five main attributes;

(1) brightness, (magnitude or luminosity);

(2) colour;

(3) surface temperature;

(4) size (diameter);

(5) mass (amount of matter).

Colour is dependent of surface temperature, brightness depends on surface temperature and the size. Mass affects how fast a stars produces energy and effects surface temperature.

Astronomers use a diagramme to show how these are all related, the Hertzsprung-Russell (H-R) diagramme

Magnitude

Based on a numbering system used by Hipparchus (120-125 B.C. Greece) stars are numbered according to their brightness as they are seen from Earth. The brightest is of the first magnitude, the next brightest of the second magnitude and so on to the sixth magnitude, which are very faint stars. Today this is called apparent magnitude. Without a telescope, Hipparchus created a catalogue of 1080 stars that could be seen in each constellation. He noted their positions, and rated their brightness but could only see stars as dim as 6th magnitude

Hipparchus catalogue was later edited and increased by Ptolemy in the "Almagest", one of the most prominent works in astronomy. Today, with ground based telescopes, we can see to about 22nd magnitude.

Later investigations showed that the difference between each magnitude was about 2.5 times brighter than the next greatest magnitude. In other words, a difference in 5 units of magnitude from magnitude 1 to magnitude 6 corresponds to a change in brightness of 100 times. As technology developed to allow more accurate measurments, astronomers started assigning partial values rather than whole numbers, 2.45 or 2.75 for example, rather than rounding off to magnitude 2 or 3.

There is now a measure of absolute magnitude, what the apparent magnitude would be if the star was 32.6 light-years from Earth

There are also stars that are brighter than the first magnitude and they are classed by numbers less than 1. Rigel’s apparent magnitude is 0.12. Extremely bright stars have numbers that are less than zero or negative numbers. The brightest stars in the night sky is Sirius with a apparent magnitude of -1.46 and the absolute magnitude of Rigel is -8.1. At the present time there are no stars classified with an absolute magnitude brighter than -8.0 Some very dim stars have an apparent magnitude of 28, but absolute magnitude can be no fainter than about 16.

Luminosity

How bright a star looks is controlled by its actual brilliance and its distance from Earth. A star’s brilliance is the amount of visible light it produces. So a nearby star can be quite dim if it is not generating a great deal of light while a star much further away can be brighter because it actually is much brighter. The star Alpha Centauri appears brighter than another star called Rigel. It would seem that Alpha Centauri produces more energy. However, Rigel is actually much brighter but it is much further away fro Earth. Alpha Centauri is about 4.4 light years away while Rigel is 1,400 light years from Earth.

Stars radiate visible light but they also radiate energy the human eye can not see. A stars luminosity is the measure of energy it radiates Our sun has a luminosity of 400 trillion trillion watts (10²⁴). Commonly in astronomy however, the luminosity is measured another way, by comparing it with our Sun. In this way Alpha Centauri is about 1.3 times as luminous as our Sun and Rigel is 150,000 times as luminous.

There is a luminosity absolute magnitude comparison: 5 on the absolute magnitude scale equals 100 on the luminosity scale. So, if a star has absolute magnitude of 2, it is 100 times as luminous as a star with an absolute magnitude of 7. A star with an absolute magnitude of -3 is 100 times as luminous as a star with an absolute magnitude is 2 and 10,000 times more luminous than a star with an absolute magnitude of 7.

Colour

With or without a telescope or binoculars, stars display a range of colours--reddish, yellowish and bluish--not very strong colour, but the variations are visible. Our sun is yellow, as is Pollux, Betelgeuse looks reddish and Rigel looks bluish. Star colour is a function of its surface temperature. Dark red stars have surface temperatures of about 2500 K and bright red stars reach about 3500 K. For yellow stars, e.g. the sun, surface temperature is approximately 5500 K. Blue stars are in the range of 10,000 to 50,000 K in surface temperature.

Since the human eye can only discern colours of the visible spectrum we do not see other wavelengths of the spectrum and stars emit a broad spectrum (bands) of colours. The colours in the visible spectrum, all the colours of the rainbow, can be viewed with a prism which separates the colour bands. Red is produced by particles of light (photons) with the least energy, all the way to violet, the photons with the most energy.

Continuous, absorption and emission spectra.

Including the electromagnetic band of seven visible colours, there are six bands of electromagnetic radiation in the electromagnetic spectrum, in range from the least energetic to the most energetic:

• radio waves
• infrared rays
• visible light
• ultraviolet rays
• X rays
• gamma rays

Fraunhofer Lines of common elements.

Studying the electromagnetic spectrum of stars is important function of astronomy. Displaying the spectrum of a star shows dark bands called absorption lines, or Fraunhofer lines, where the radiation energy is weaker, caused by a cooler gas between the observer and the and the hotter emitting gas.

Occasionally there are also bright emission lines were radiation energy is especially strong.

Spectrum for PIA04940: Embedded Star in Herbig-Haro 46/47.

Absorption lines exist because a chemical element or compound absorbs radiation with the same energy at that particular line on the spectrum. Our sun, for example, has absorption bands in the green range of the spectrum because there is calcium in the outer layer of the sun absorbing radiation at the same energy. While most stars have absorption lines in the visible spectrum, emission lines are more common in other bands of the spectrum. Nitrogen in a sun’s atmosphere, for example, will result in emission lines in the ultraviolet band.

An example of a spectrum for a particular star is an embedded star in Herbig-Haro 46/47 as determined by the Spitzer Space Telescope (SST). This is a low mass protostar ejecting a jet of supersonic gas and creating a bipolar, or two-sided, outflow which interacts with the surrounding interstellar medium--bright, nebulous regions of gas and dust that are buried within a dark dust cloud. Elements and compunds present in the protostar as determined from the EM spectrum include water ice, methyl alcohol, silicates and carbon dioxide ice.

Life Cycle

Stars have a beginning and an end. Our sun became a star about 4.6 billion years ago and may last another 5 billion years. After that it will become a red giant, later it will lose its outer layers and the remaining core of the star will become a white dwarf, eventually fading to a black dwarf, dense and without light.

Not all stars end this way. Some will cool off and without expanding to a red giant stage will become white dwarfs, then black dwarfs..

Another possibility for a small percentage of stars is a spectacular explosion called a supernovae. The star explodes and loses most of its material. An even smaller percentage, undergo a very rare occurrence, they completely explode and nothing is left.

Galaxies

Stars are grouped in galaxies with rare exceptions. Astronomical observations to date have recorded galaxies at distances of 12 to 16 billion light years from our sun. Our sun is in the galaxy called the Milky Way which contains an estimated 100 billion stars. It is estimated that there are more than 100 billion galaxies in the universe and average about 100 billion stars per galaxy. This means that there is an estimated 10 billion, trillion stars in the universe (10²¹). From Earth however, without using binoculars or a telescope, it is only possible to see about 3,000 of them.