21st Century Astronomy
6th Edition
ISBN: 9780393428063
Author: Kay
Publisher: NORTON
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Chapter 15, Problem 24QP
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How observations of CO help to infer the amounts and distribution of molecular hydrogen.
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. The radius of the nebula is about 0.401 light-years. The gas is expanding away from the star at a rate of about 37
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. Considering that distance = velocity x time, calculate how long ago the gas left the star if its speed has been constant the whole time. Make sure you use consistent units for time, speed, and distance. Answer in years.
All massive main sequence stars reside in clouds of glowing gas. The four powerful stars in the center of the Orion Nebula are good examples. Lower mass stars like the Sun generally don't have clouds of gas around them. a. Why do powerful stars reside in gas clouds? b. What is making the gas glow exactly? For the last question, refer to the surface temperature of these stars, and to Wien's Law.
Chapter 15 Solutions
21st Century Astronomy
Ch. 15.1 - Prob. 15.1CYUCh. 15.2 - Prob. 15.2CYUCh. 15.3 - Prob. 15.3CYUCh. 15.4 - Prob. 15.4CYUCh. 15 - Prob. 1QPCh. 15 - Prob. 2QPCh. 15 - Prob. 3QPCh. 15 - Prob. 4QPCh. 15 - Prob. 5QPCh. 15 - Prob. 6QP
Ch. 15 - Prob. 7QPCh. 15 - Prob. 8QPCh. 15 - Prob. 9QPCh. 15 - Prob. 10QPCh. 15 - Prob. 11QPCh. 15 - Prob. 12QPCh. 15 - Prob. 13QPCh. 15 - Prob. 14QPCh. 15 - Prob. 15QPCh. 15 - Prob. 16QPCh. 15 - Prob. 17QPCh. 15 - Prob. 18QPCh. 15 - Prob. 19QPCh. 15 - Prob. 20QPCh. 15 - Prob. 21QPCh. 15 - Prob. 22QPCh. 15 - Prob. 23QPCh. 15 - Prob. 24QPCh. 15 - Prob. 25QPCh. 15 - Prob. 26QPCh. 15 - Prob. 27QPCh. 15 - Prob. 28QPCh. 15 - Prob. 29QPCh. 15 - Prob. 30QPCh. 15 - Prob. 31QPCh. 15 - Prob. 32QPCh. 15 - Prob. 33QPCh. 15 - Prob. 35QPCh. 15 - Prob. 36QPCh. 15 - Prob. 37QPCh. 15 - Prob. 38QPCh. 15 - Prob. 39QPCh. 15 - Prob. 40QPCh. 15 - Prob. 41QPCh. 15 - Prob. 42QPCh. 15 - Prob. 43QPCh. 15 - Prob. 44QPCh. 15 - Prob. 45QP
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Need a deep-dive on the concept behind this application? Look no further. Learn more about this topic, physics and related others by exploring similar questions and additional content below.Similar questions
- Consider the following five kinds of objects: open cluster, giant molecular cloud, globular cluster, group of O and B stars, and planetary nebulae. A. Which occur only in spiral arms? B. Which occur only in the parts of the Galaxy other than the spiral arms? C. Which are thought to be very young? D. Which are thought to be very old? E. Which have the hottest stars?arrow_forwardDescribe the characteristics of the various kinds of interstellar gas (HII regions, neutral hydrogen clouds, ultra-hot gas clouds, and molecular clouds).arrow_forwardLook at the four stages shown in Figure 21.8. In which stage(s) can we see the star in visible light? In infrared radiation? Figure 21.8 Formation of a Star. (a) Dense cores form within a molecular cloud. (b) A protostar with a surrounding disk of material forms at the center of a dense core, accumulating additional material from the molecular cloud through gravitational attraction. (c) A stellar wind breaks out but is confined by the disk to flow out along the two poles of the star. (d) Eventually, this wind sweeps away the cloud material and halts the accumulation of additional material, and a newly formed star, surrounded by a disk, becomes observable. These sketches are not drawn to the same scale. The diameter of a typical envelope that is supplying gas to the newly forming star is about 5000 AU. The typical diameter of the disk is about 100 AU or slightly larger than the diameter of the orbit of Pluto.arrow_forward
- Describe the evolution of a star with a mass similar to that of the Sun, from the protostar stage to the time it first becomes a red giant. Give the description in words and then sketch the evolution on an HR diagram.arrow_forwardYou 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 HR Diagram. Compare this HR 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 HR Diagram for an Older Cluster. We see the HR 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 Starsarrow_forwardGive several reasons the Orion molecular cloud is such a useful “laboratory” for studying the stages of star formation.arrow_forward
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