1. Astro 201: Sept. 23, 2010 Turn in IR Camera write-up in front of class Pick up graded HW along side of classroom, will talk about grading in class First MIDTERM: Tuesday, Sept. 28 – covers through the end of today’s lecture, see web page for info Office Hours: Monday 2-5pm Reading: Hester, Chapter 13 (Taking the Measure of Stars); 14 (Our Sun) Today: – Finish talking about telescopes – Stars, continued

2. “Seeing” Weather conditions and turbulence in the atmosphere set limits to the quality of astronomical images from ground-based observatories Bad seeing Good seeing Mountain top observatories are put on peaks where the Atmospheric turbulence is minimal = twinkling

3. Laminar vs. Turbulent Fluid Flow Air becomes turbulent when it encounters a barrier – e.g. a mountaintop  bad seeing

4. Laminar flow Turbulent Flow

7. Figure 5.16: Bubbles of warmer or cooler air distort light

8. The Hubble Space Telescope is 600 kilometers above the Earth’s surface.

9. Hubble Space Telescope has great angular resolution; it’s above the turbulent atmosphere. Light-gathering ability? Not as great; it’s only D = 2.4 meters in diameter. Problem: It costs a lot of money to put a telescope in space!

10. Problem #2: It’s really hard to repair telescopes in space – only Hubble was designed to be repairable John Grunsfeld: Visiting this December

11. Figure 5.18: Atmospheric windows in the spectrum

12. X-Ray Astronomy X-rays are completely absorbed in the atmosphere. X-ray astronomy has to be done from satellites. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory

13. Gamma-Ray Astronomy Gamma-rays: most energetic electromagnetic radiation; traces the most violent processes in the Universe The Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory

14. Infrared Astronomy Although short wavelength IR gets through the atmosphere, longer wavelength IR does not. In space, can cool the telescopes so it’s not a source of high background Spitzer Space Telescope Next Huge NASA mission, after Hubble Space Telescope ends: James Web Space Telescope (JWST)

15. Radio telescopes detect radio frequency radiation which is invisible to your eyes. Parabolic “dish” of a radio telescope acts as a mirror, reflecting radio waves to the focus.

16. Radio telescopes can be huge because they don’t have to be as smooth as optical telescopes: the wavelength of radio light is several cm’s and mirrors only have to be smooth to about 1/20 of a wavelength to focus the light well Surface of mirror

17. Arecibo Radio Observatory in Puerto Rico

18. Radio Interferometry The Very Large Array (VLA): 27 dishes are combined to simulate a large dish of 36 km in diameter. Even larger arrays consist of dishes spread out over the entire U.S. (VLBA = Very Long Baseline Array) or even the whole Earth (VLBI = Very Long Baseline Interferometry)

20. STARS What is a star? Why do they shine? How old are they?

21. Mass of Stars: Periodic Doppler Shift

22. Summary of Stellar Properties: Spectral TypeMASS (solar masses) Luminosity (solar luminosities) Surface Temperature (degrees K) Radius (solar radii) O40400,00040,00013 B1513,00028,0004.9 A3.58010,0003.0 F1.76.47,5001.5 G1.11.46,0001.1 K0.080.465,0000.9 M0.050.083,5000.8 Also there are Giants, Supergiants and white dwarfs: Same Temperature as stars in the table, but different luminosity and radii.

23. Thanks again to Barbara Ryden, OSU

24. Kelvin = Celsius + 273 Water boils: 373 Kelvin (K) Water freezes: 273 K Absolute zero: 0 K Room temperature: ~300 K Surface of Sun: ~5800 K

25. B star is much larger, brighter and hotter than the Sun. An example is HD93129A shown below:

26. The Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram When you plot LUMINOSITY versus Temperature for stars in the sky, the result is not a scatter plot Hertzsprung and Russell first realized this, and the diagram they made is still an important tool in astronomy for understanding stars

28. H-R Diagram Hertzsprung- Russell Diagram Plot Luminosity versus Surface Temperature (or equivalently, Luminosity versus spectral classification)

29. Main Sequence: Stars fusing hydrogen to helium Example: The Sun

30. Giants are more luminous than a main sequence star of the same temperature. Giants tend to be relatively cool (T < 6000 Kelvin) but luminous (L = 100 to 1000 L sun ). Supergiants are even more luminous than giants. Supergiants can have any temperature, but they are always VERY luminous, with L = 100,000 to 1,000,000 L sun. White Dwarfs are less luminous than a main sequence star of the same temperature. They are called WHITE dwarfs because they are fairly hot; white-hot, in fact, with temperatures of T > 5000 Kelvin. The are low in luminosity, with L = 0.0001 to 0.01 L sun.

31. In a sample of 1,000,000 stars from the Milky Way, on average you'd find: 900,000 main sequence stars 96,000 white dwarfs 4000 giants 1 supergiant

32. So now we have a range of stellar colors and sizes. For example, Aldebaran is a red supergiant star:

33. Arcturus is an orange giant star:

34. Betelgeuse A very large red giant in Orion

35. White Dwarfs: about the size of the Earth

36. Stellar Lifetimes on the Main Sequence: More Massive Stars are more luminous, and are burning hydrogen more efficiently. They therefore have shorter lifetimes on the Main Sequence before they burn up the Hydrogen in their core Mass of the Star (M sun )Main Sequence Lifetime 110 billion years 5100 million years 1010 million years

37. After the hydrogen fuel in the core of the main sequence star is used up, There is no longer enough thermal pressure in the core to balance gravitational collapse. No more hydrostatic equilibrium What happens next? Star rearranges itself outer layers expand and cool Star becomes a red giant or supergiant Eventually more processes happen and the red giant becomes a supernova or planetary nebula, and then a white Dwarf, neutron star or black hole – more on this later

38. STAR CLUSTERS All the stars in a cluster are (1) at the same distance, and (2) were formed together, so are the same age. Open Clusters: Young (Less than a billion years old) found in the disk of the Milky Way typically 100's - 1000's of stars often have gas and dust Globular Clusters: Contain oldest stars in the Milky Way -- 12-13 billion years old stars in orbit around center of cluster, gravitationally bound Typically 100,000 - million stars never have gas and dust

39. PLEIADES Open Cluster

40. H & Chi Persei, a Double OPEN Cluster

41. The Jewel Box: 10 million years old

42. M46 and M47: Open Clusters

43. Charles Messier (1730-1817) French Astronomer Made a catalog of 103 “nebulous” i.e. fuzzy objects Nebula = cloud Purpose: help comet hunters M47 = 47 th object on Messier’s list Some are clusters of stars, some are galaxies, some are gas clouds

44. M55: Globular Cluster

45. Omega Cen: Globular Cluster

46. M80: Globular Cluster

47. Schematic of Milky Way Galaxy Open clusters: In the Disk only

48. Midterm #1 covers material up to here.