Chapter 22, Problem 35E

You can use the equation in Exercise 22.34 to estimate the approximate ages of the clusters in Figure 22.10, Figure 22.12, and Figure 22.13. Use the information in the figures to determine the luminosity of the most massive star still on the main sequence. Now use the data in Table 18.3 to estimate the mass of this star. Then calculate the age of the cluster. This method is similar to the procedure used by astronomers to obtain the ages of clusters, except that they use actual data and model calculations rather than simply making estimates from a drawing. How do your ages compare with the ages in the text?

Figure 22.10 NGC 2264 H−R Diagram. Compare this H−R diagram to that in Figure 22.8; although the points scatter a bit more here, the theoretical and observational diagrams are remarkably, and satisfyingly, similar.

Figure 22.12 Cluster M41. (a) Cluster M41 is older than NGC 2264 (see Figure 22.10) and contains several red giants. Some of its more massive stars are no longer close to the zero-age main sequence (red line). (b) This ground-based photograph shows the open cluster M41. Note that it contains several orange-color stars. These are stars that have exhausted hydrogen in their centers, and have swelled up to become red giants. (credit b: modification of work by NOAO/AURA/NSF)

Figure 22.13 H−R Diagram for an Older Cluster. We see the H−R diagram for a hypothetical older cluster at an age of 4.24 billion years. Note that most of the stars on the upper part of the main sequence have turned off toward the red-giant region. And the most massive stars in the cluster have already died and are no longer on the diagram.

Characteristics of Main-Sequence Stars