Zombie Questions
This is the energy produced when 9 kg of mass are converted into energy.
What is 8x10^17 J?
The name given to a young star that is still gathering mass from its molecular cloud.
What is a protostar?
This is the process that low mass main sequence stars use to convert hydrogen into helium.
What is the proton-proton chain?
At the end of the supergiant stage of a massive star's life, this violent explosion produces a brilliant glow that can last for weeks.
What is a supernova?
A region in space created by a stellar collapse characterized by gravitational forces so strong that not even light can escape.
What is a black hole?
This is the energy produced by the sun during this 90 minute class period.
What is 2x10^30 J?
One of the four fundamental forces, responsible for the collapse of the gas cloud that forms a star.
What is gravity?
The most abundant element in the human body and the nuclear fuel that powers main sequence stars.
What is hydrogen?
This is the stage of a high mass star's life during which it swells to a gigantic size.
What is the supergiant stage?
The hot remains of the core of a low mass star that has reached the end of its life.
What is a white dwarf?
This is the distance (in parsecs) to a star with parallax angle of 0.05 arcseconds.
What is 20 pc?
A protostar becomes a main sequence star when this characteristic is met.
What is steady nuclear fusion?
This is the correct order of the life stages of a low mass star.
What is: protostar, main sequence, red giant, planetary nebula/white dwarf?
This is the correct order of the life stages of a massive star.
What is: protostar, main sequence, supergiant, supernova, and neutron star or black hole?
This physical phenomenon will keep a white dwarf from collapsing under its own gravity.
What is electron degeneracy pressure?
This is the luminosity of a star with apparent brightness of 1x10^ - 8 W/m^2 and distance 9x10^17 m.
What is 1x10^29 W?
The requirements for the minimum mass that a molecular gas must have in order to form stars depends on the temperature of the gas and this other physical property.
What is density?
The late life stage of a low mass star characterized by a large, bloated radius and high luminosity.
What is a red giant?
The production of this heaviest element in the core of a massive star signals its inevitable collapse.
What is iron?
This physical phenomenon will keep a neutron star from collapsing under its own gravity.
What is neutron degeneracy pressure?
Star A appears this many times brighter than Star B, given that Star A is 4 times farther from Earth and 2 times more luminous than Star B.
What is 1/8?
This is the minimum mass of a star-forming gas cloud, in units of solar mass, with density 350 particles/cm^3 @ 35K.
What is 200Msun?
The triple alpha process that occurs in the helium core of a red giant fuses three helium nuclei into this element that is essential to life.
What is carbon?
This is the name given to a rapidly spinning neutron star that appears to flash in the direction of the Earth.
What is a pulsar?
A strange star so dense that a teaspoon of its star material can have the equivalent mass of a mountain.
What is a neutron star?