Chapter 18, Problem 1E

How does the mass of the Sun compare with that of other stars in our local neighborhood?

To determine

ToExplain:

Mass of the sun in comparison to other neighboring stars.

Explanation of Solution

Introduction:

The sun is a sphere of hot plasma. Sun situated at the center of the solar system. It is an average-sized star inthe neighborhood.There are trillions of other stars in the galaxy.

As it is huge, its diameter is about $\text{864,938}$ miles, and it also has a mass of about $\text{1}{\text{.989×10}}^{\text{30}}\text{Kg}$, i.e.,around $\text{1}\text{.3}$ million Earths can fit in the sun.Also, in the local neighborhood, only three kinds of stars named as F type and A type are massive than the Sun.

Millions of stars arepresent in our Milky Way galaxy.The diameter of the Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years. Our local neighborhoodis in the range of about $\text{21}$ eightlight-years of the spread of the sun. There are a number of stars having true mass of about $\text{1}/\text{12}$ times lesser than that of our huge sun and some have masses about $\text{100}$ times more than that of the Sun. It is also true that the Sun is average-sizedamongst all the bigcommunity of starsin the neighborhood of our vicinity.

Conclusion:

Thus, it is observed that there are a number of stars in theMilky Way galaxy having a mass of about $\text{1}/\text{12}$ of the mass of the Sun. Also, few stars have $\text{100}$ times the mass of the Sun.