Prem Astronomy Final Pt. 2
How much of our solar system's mass is the sun?
99.9% of the solar systems mass is the sun.
Solar flare
A burst of light and energy from a spot on the sun
Coronal mass ejection
A huge eruption of hot gas and plasma that shoots out into space
Pulsar
A rapidly spinning neutron star that emits pulses of energy like a light house.
Why do bigger stars have a shorter lifespan?
Bigger stars have a shorter life span because they fuse their hydrogen much faster.
What is a galaxy a group of?
Billions of stars
What stars are the hottest?
Blue stars are the hottest.
How are all stars fueled?
By nuclear fusion.
Sunspots
Cooler dark spots
Spaghettification
Describes how matter is stretched dramatically as it experiences much more gravity on the leading edge then the trailing edge
What happens during the fusion of hydrogen?
During the fusion of hydrogen, 0.7% of the mass is converted into energy. Einstein's equation E=MC^2 shows that even the small amount of mass produce is a tremendous amount of energy when converted.
Three galaxies types are?
Elliptical, spiral and irregular
Light year
How far light can go in one year. This is about 6 trillion miles.
Spiral galaxies contain what type of stars?
It contains mostly new stars
Elliptical galaxies contain mostly what type of stars?
It contains mostly older stars.
What happens to a small to medium star like our sun when it ends its life?
It turns into a red giant
After the atmosphere of a star like out sun shoots outward and the core condenses what does it turn into?
It turns into a white dwarf, white dwarf is similar to earth in size.
Spicules
Jets of gas, look likes spines on the sun
How far can light go in one year?
Light can go about 6 trillion miles in one year
How long does light from the sun take to reach earth?
Light from the sun takes eight minutes to reach earth.
How fast does light travel per second?
Light travels 186,000 mi./s
Prominence
Loop of hot gas
What planets can you easily see with a naked eye?
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars Jupiter, and Saturn
Does the light from stars arrive quickly to earth?
No, it takes years to get here! When you look in the sky you are seeing the past.
Aurora(Northern lights)
Occur when strong solar wind from a flare interacts with our upper atmosphere
What is parallax?
Parallax is the change and a parent position of something when viewed from two different spots. The closest star is to us, the more it appears to move against the background of stars as the earth orbits the sun.
what stars are the coolest?
Red stars are the coolest
How long is the cycle for solar activity?
Solar activity runs on an 11 your cycle. Every 11 years we have a peak of sunspots, flares, etc.
What are stars a balance of? What's happens when this balance stops?
Stars are A balance between fusion trying to explode them in gravity trying to crush them. When stars runs out of fuel, gravity wins and crushes them into a white dwarf, neutron star or a black hole depending on how massive the stars is.
Solar wind
Stream of electrically charged particles
What galaxies are visible with the naked eye.
The Andromeda Galaxy is visible if you know where to look.
How far across is the Milky Way Galaxy?
The Milky Way is about 100,000 light years across.
Event horizon
The boundary that nothing can escape from once it crosses
Singularity
The center of a black hole with enormous mass but NO volume
Other than the sun what is the closest star to earth and how many light years away from us is it?
The closest star to earth other than the sun is the three stars in Alpha Centauri. These three stars are about four light years away from us.
Schwarzschild Radius
The size any object would need to shrink in order to become a black hole
About how much longer will the sun last?
The sun has enough hydrogen to last another 5 billion years.
What type of stars the sun?
The sun is a main sequence star which means it has plenty of fuel left and follows the main sequence on the temperature/brightness graph.
About how old is the sun?
The sun is about 5 billion years old.
How big is the sun compared to earth? Or how many earths could fit in the sun?
The sun is an average star but huge compared to earth. 109 earths fit side-by-side across the sun and about 1.3 million earth could fit inside
How is the sun "powered"?
The sun is powered by nuclear fusion. Nuclear fusion turns hydrogen into helium.
How can strong solar flares affect us?
They can disrupt our electrical/network system.
What happens to a small to medium star after it ends it's the life and the atmosphere then shoots outward?
Turns into a planetary nebula
Why doe we use parallax?
We use parallax to measure distances to stars.
Are all the stars you see in the night sky in the Milky Way?
Yes
Are brighter stars usually hotter?
Yes
