Astronomical observations of our Milky Way galaxy indicate that it has a mass of about 8.0 x 10 solar masses. A star orbiting near the galaxy's periphery is 5.6 x 10* light-years from its center. (a) What should the orbital period (in y) of that star be? (b) If its period is 5.3 x 107 years instead, what is the mass (in solar masses) of the galaxy? Such calculations are used to imply the existence of other matter, such as a very massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. solar masses
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.
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