Analyzing Starlight
Of the stars Deneb (blue), Capella (yellow), and Antares (red), this star has the coolest surface temperature.
What is Antares?
The largest stars are found here on the H-R diagram.
What is the upper right?
A star in the process of forming is called this.
What is a protostar?
Our Sun will end its life as this type of object.
What is a white dwarf?
The Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram is a plot of these two parameters.
What are luminosity and surface temperature (or spectral class, or color)?
The star Altair has an apparent magnitude of 0.8. The star Polaris has an apparent magnitude of 2.0. This star appears brighter in the sky.
What is Altair?
90% of stars fall into this grouping on the H-R diagram.
What is the Main Sequence?
This wavelength of light is most useful for studying young, forming stars.
What is infrared light?
Nuclear fusion in massive stars ends with this element.
What is iron?
This is the spectral type of stars with the shortest main sequence lifetimes.
What is O?
Spica is a type B star. Arcturus is a type K star. This is the hotter star.
What is Spica?
The brightest stars we see with our eyes are best described on the HR Diagram as this.
What are high luminosity stars?
These are objects without enough mass to sustain nuclear fusion in their cores, i.e., less than 0.075 M_Sun.
What are brown dwarfs?
A massive star will potentially leave behind one these two types of objects as a stellar corpse.
What are neutron stars and black holes?
This is the maximum mass for a white dwarf.
What is 1.4 solar masses (or What is the Chandrasekar Mass Limit?)
The star Capella has a parallax angle of 0.08". The star Rigel has a parallax angle of 0.004". This one is the more distant star.
What is Rigel?
Stars with high temperatures but low luminosities fall into this grouping on the H-R diagram.
What are white dwarfs?
A star in the main sequence phase of its lifespan will generate energy by this method in its core.
What is hydrogen fusion?
After the red giant phase, the Sun will eject its outer layers and exhibit this type of object.
What is a planetary nebula?
This is the luminosity of a 2 M_Sun main sequence star.
What is 16 L_Sun?
Vega and Pollux have the same luminosity. Vega is a type A star while Pollux is a type K star. This star has the greater diameter.
What is Pollux?
These are the most common stars in the Galaxy.
What are red dwarfs? (or What are low-mass stars?)
A 10 MSun star, a 5 MSun star, a 1 MSun star, and a 0.5 MSun star form at the same time in a star cluster. This star will run out of hydrogen fuel first.
What is the 10 MSun star?
When the Sun is a red giant, it will be as big across as this.
What is the orbit of the Earth? (or What is 2 AU?)
What is Cluster A?