Stellar Lives
What is the K star?
The Sun will eventually leave behind this type of remnant; Snow White would feel right at home.
What is a white dwarf?
The real, intrinsic brightness of a star is called this term; it is very similar to the name of an app claiming to promote mental sharpness.
What is luminosity?
People set off these to alert rescue personnel to their locations; the Sun's version are bigger and can cause even greater lights in aurorae.
What are flares?
This term refers to a dense collection of collapsing gas and dust before it becomes a star.
What is a protostar?
What are neutron stars?
Of a star with an apparent magnitude of 0.7 and a star with an apparent magnitude of 2.5, it is the brighter one.
What is the star with the apparent magnitude of 0.7?
These energetic bursts were discovered by satellites monitoring Cold War activities; the Hulk had nothing to do with it.
What are Gamma Ray Bursts?
When a star has used up all the hydrogen in its core, it will enter this phase; the lemurs of Madagascar hailed the New York ones without the associated color.
What is the Red Giant phase?
Cygnus X-1 is believed to be associated with this type of stellar remnant.
What is a black hole?
The most massive stars have masses about this many times larger than the Sun.
What is 100?
(Accept anything from 50 to 150)
This is the final element that can be produced by nuclear fusion before a massive star dies in a supernova; some pump it.
What is iron?
It is what the letters of ZAMS stand for.
What is the Zero Age Main Sequence?
This astronomer determined the Limit now associated with his name; it is that stars with cores larger than 1.4 solar masses will become neutron stars or black holes.
Who was Chandrasekhar?
The number of years that an M star will reside on the Main Sequence.
What is a few hundred billion years.
(Accept anything over 100 billion years)
Of Type I or Type II, this variety of supernova is associated with a white dwarf exceeding its mass limit.
What is a Type I supernova?
The Sun fuses hydrogen into helium in its core. This element is produced through the fusion of helium atoms in cores of large stars after their central hydrogen fusion has ended.
What is carbon?
Astronomers believe that this process is how precious metals are formed.
What are collisions of neutron stars?
If a star spends 100 million years on the Main Sequence, it will spend about this many years as a Red Giant.
What is 10 million?
(Factor of 10 less than Main Sequence time)
These brief flare-ups occur when mass dumped onto the accretion disk of a white dwarf undergoes a violent burst of nuclear fusion. I'm sorry that I mentioned we were due to see one this semester.
What are novae?