Announcements
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Transcript of Announcements
Announcements• Wednesday night star parties begin this
week, 8:45 pm, weather permitting. Attend one for 4 points extra credit! (Staff signature required.)
• 10:00 office hour cut short today• Majors Fest at Union Building Gallery
Nuclear Reactions in Stars (part 2)
1 November 2006
Today:
• What makes the stars shine?• How long do they last?• Then what happens?
The Sun’s Interior
Thermonuclear energy zone
Radiative zone
Convective zone
The Sun’s Interior
Nuclear reactions only take place in the innermost 30% of the sun’s radius.
The central density is 150 times that of water; the central temperature is 15 million kelvin.
In summary…
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas,
A giant nuclear furnace,
Where hydrogen is built into helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees.
-- Zim and Baker, A Golden Guide to Stars, 1951; borrowed by They Might Be Giants, 1993
Can we test any of this theory?Yes! Look for the neutrinos…
Fusion of Hydrogen into Helium
4 1H (protons) 4He
This reaction powers all main-sequence stars.
The more massive the star, the more pressure at its center and therefore the faster the reaction occurs.
Masses of Stars
Sizes of Main-Sequence Stars
Should be white, not green!
Hottest stars are actually somewhat larger
Reds are greatly exaggerated!
Main Sequence Lifetimes(predicted)
Mass (suns)
Surface temp (K)
Luminosity (suns)
Lifetime (years)
25 35,000 80,000 3 million15 30,000 10,000 15 million3 11,000 60 500 million
1.5 7,000 5 3 billion1.0 6,000 1 10 billion0.75 5,000 0.5 15 billion0.50 4,000 0.03 200 billion
What happens when the core of a star runs out of hydrogen?
• With no energy source, the core of the star resumes its collapse…
• As it collapses, gravitational energy is again converted to thermal energy…
• This heat allows fusion to occur in a shell of material surrounding the core…
• Due to the higher central temperature, the star’s luminosity is greater than before…
• This increased energy production causes the outer part of the star to expand and cool (counterintuitive!)…
• We now have a very large, cool, luminous star: a “red giant”!