Stellar Life and Death
The stage of stellar life that the star is in
Bonus 50: The stage of stellar life that the sun will become in about 5 billion years
What is main sequence?
For bonus 50: What is red giant?
Why can gravity move at the same speed as light?
Bonus 50: What is the name of the theoretical particle that carries gravity?
Both are massless phenomena, so there is no limitation preventing them from reaching the speed of causality (the c in E = mc2)
The graviton
What is an exoplanet biomarker?
A substance such as an atmospheric gas or surface feature detected via spectroscopy, which indicates biochemical processes of an exoplanet.
The universe's expansion will eventually reverse due to gravity. All matter collapses back into a hot, dense, singularity. Gravity wins over dark energy.
What are protostars? (how do they form?)
1. Young stars formed from stellar nebulae that have not yet begun nuclear fusion
What are the four fundamental forces in the universe?
Bonus 50 for each one you get correct (4 x 50 = 200+ max points): What are their functions?
Gravity, Electromagnetism, the Strong Force, the Weak Force
Gravity is an attractive force that draws two objects together. Electromagnetism attracts or repels charged objects. The Strong Force holds protons and neutrons together within atoms. The Weak Force changes one quark type into another.
For 100 points: The most common exoplanet detection method
For 100 points: Explain how the process works
1. Transit photometry
2. An exoplanet orbits its host star, causing a periodic dip in the star's brightness that can be measured as the presence of said exoplanet.
What is the Big Rip?
Dark energy pushes things farther and farther apart until the nearest galaxies are thousands of lightyears away. Dark energy will win over gravity.
For 200: Why is a brown dwarf called a "failed star?"
For 100: What is a black dwarf?
1. A brown dwarf lacks sufficient mass (typically 75-80 Jupiter masses) to successfully sustain nuclear fusion.
2. A hypothetical stellar remnant that a white dwarf will cool down into over trillions of years, to the point where heat or light are no longer emitted.
150 for each part you answer correctly.
1. Why is liquid environmentally rare in the universe?
2. Why did solids form before liquids in the universe?
1. a. Most simply, the universe is typically either too cold or too hot.
2. The universe expanded and cooled too quickly (from hot plasma to a low-density gas that then condensed into solid dust).
For 150: How do astronomers differentiate between an exoplanet and passing/orbiting debris with the transit method?
For 150: What alphabet-letter shape will exoplanet transits be? What shape will debris transits be?
1. Every planet has a periodic orbit, meaning that exoplanet transits will be predictable and consistent.
2. Exoplanet transits are U-shaped. Debris transits are V-shaped.
What is vacuum decay?
The theory that a quantum tunneling event could create a small bubble of a "true vacuum" within the Universe's "false vacuum." The bubble would expand faster than the speed of light, breaking physics.
A very high-mass star will undergo these events.
it will undergo a s______, leaving behind a ______ ____, which will become a ____ ____.
1. supernovae, neutron star, black hole.
For each particle you attribute correctly, you get 100 points.
The particles that carry the a. strong force, b. electromagnetic force, and c. weak force, respectively. (Hint: there are two for the weak force)
What are a. gluons, b. photons, and c. Z and W bosons?
Name two benefits of using the transit method.
For an extra 50 points, name a third benefit.
Tells us...
1. How big the planet is
2. How far the planet is from its host star
3. The composition of the planet's atmosphere or its temperature
FOR ACTUALLY 400 THIS TIME: What is the Cyclic Model, and which of the previous three mentioned fates (the Big Rip, the Big Crunch, or Vacuum Decay) represents the end event of this model before the cycle restarts?
The theory that the universe goes through repeated cycles of expansion and contraction.
The Big Bang represents expansion, while the Big Crunch represents the segue into another Big Bang.
For 250: Describe the anatomy of a black hole.
For 250: The radiation emitted by a black hole that allows it to eventually "evaporate"
1. The outermost has an event horizon, beyond which no light can escape. The innermost has a singularity, which is of infinite density.
2. What is Hawking Radiation?
For 250: The property of matter that the Higgs field carries
For 250: How are superfluids and Bose-Einstein condensates related?
1. What is matter?
2. Both occur near absolute zero, superfluidity can be a property of Bose-Einstein condensates, particles in both situations act like a single entity
The probability of an exoplanet being aligned directly between its host star and the Earth
What is 0.47%?
For 10 points: The name of the blue cat from the picture in the last slide for today's meeting
What is Gumball from the Amazing World of Gumball?