Download The Sun and the Stars

The Sun and the Stars
The Sun
#4-Core
#7-Corona
#2Chromosphere
#8-Solar flares
#5-Prominence
#3-Sun spot
Also
#1-Photosphere
#6-Solar wind
Fill in the blanks
• In the CORE hydrogen is fused into helium
• A Sunspot is a dark area of the sun that is cooler than the
surrounding areas
• The photosphere is the lowest layer of the suns atmosphere
from which light is given off
• Solar wind is made up of charged particles that continually
escape from the corona and move through space
• The Chromosphere is the largest layer of the sun’s
atmosphere
• The Corona extends upwards of 10 000 km
• A huge arching column of gas is a prominence
• Gases near a sunspot that suddenly brighten, shooting gas
outward at high speeds, are called solar flares
Stars and their Life Cycles
• What is the single most distinguishing feature
of a star?
• Luminosity is a term that astronomers use
when describing the total amount of energy it
radiated by the star ( the twinkle)
• It can be measured more precisely as a star’s
total energy output per second, measured in
Joules per second (J/s)
• When discussion stars we always compare
with the sun, some stars are about 10 000
times less luminous than the Sun or up to 30
000 times more luminous.
Brightness
• Astronomers also use the term absolute
magnitude when describing the brightness of
the star this term describes how bright the
star would appear at a distance of 32.6 light
years from Earth, our Suns absolute
magnitude is 4.7 and is really rather faint.
• While all stars appear as a faint white light from
a distance they can be bluish, bluish-white,
yellow, orangish, or reddish depending on their
surface temperature
• Scientists use a powerful telescope to analyze
the colour of the star and then its surface
temperature. Since the Sun is yellow, we infer
that the temperature of yellow stars is about
6000°C, bluish stars have a surface
temperature between 21 000° C and 35
000°C, reddish stars have a lower temperature
of about 3300°C
Star Masses
• How did astronomers estimate the masses of
stars? Most stars in the solar system exist as
binary stars, these starts are composed of 2
distinct stars which orbit each other, the sun
is unusual in that it is not a binary star
• By knowing the size of the orbit of the binary
star and the revolution of the starts,
astronomers were able to calculate the mass
of each star, it is expressed in solar mass.
The Suns solar mass is 1 and other starts
range from 0.08 to 100 solar masses.
Use the text book and these
websites to help you fill out
your column of the chart.
• http://www.telescope.org/pparc/res8.htm
l
• http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/rel_st
ars.html
– Check out the links at the bottom