MODULE: From the Universe to the AtomTOPIC: Origins of the Elements (II)QUESTION:Part a) Explain why the presence of white drawf stars helps to indicate the age of clusters.Part b) Explain the future of a main-sequence star 9 times the mass of our Sun.
Stellar evolution
We may see thousands of stars in the dark sky. Our universe consists of billions of stars. Stars may appear tiny to us but they are huge balls of gasses. Sun is a star of average size. Some stars are even a thousand times larger than the sun. The stars do not exist forever they have a certain lifetime. The life span of the sun is about 10 billion years. The star undergoes various changes during its lifetime, this process is called stellar evolution. The structure of the sun-like star is shown below.
Red Shift
It is an astronomical phenomenon. In this phenomenon, increase in wavelength with corresponding decrease in photon energy and frequency of radiation of light. It is the displacement of spectrum of any kind of astronomical object to the longer wavelengths (red) side.
MODULE: From the Universe to the Atom
TOPIC: Origins of the Elements (II)
QUESTION:
Part a) Explain why the presence of white drawf stars helps to indicate the age of clusters.
Part b) Explain the future of a main-sequence star 9 times the mass of our Sun.
Part A:
In a star cluster every star is expected to be formed from the same cloud of interstellar gas and are expected to have all most similar properties. It is more likely that the star of size of our sun is to be formed from this interstellar gas than the giant stars.
White dwarfs are formed When a Sun-type star reaches the end of its lifetime and sheds most of its outer gasses as a planetary nebula, the remaining core — a white dwarf — slowly cools for billions of years.
Hence determining the age of the oldest white dwarf in a star cluster will yield most accurate age of the cluster.
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