Introduction to Astronomy Essay Example for Free

Introduction to Astronomy EssayThe spirit cycle of a hero is a process that is not only beautiful but, fascinating to those flushed ones who waste the chance to study the subject. To the uneducated soul, gazing upon the night sky wondering what is bulge thither is not a common thing. provided being able to learn active what is really out there and how it became, that my friends, is truly an amazing task. One has to wonder just how we k nowadays what type of star we are expression at or at what point in the stars life sentence cycle the star dwells. Since the dawn of man, we have studied the stars, and until the last century, astronomers have found ways to measure four properties of stars their luminosities, temperatures, radii, and masses. With this knowledge, they now have classified thousands of stars by plotting these stars on diagrams and charts characterized by any pair of these specific properties. A sense impression is Born Stellar Nursery Nebula The proverbial birth of a star leaves deep down a wide cloud of gas and dust kn deliver as a nebula. A nebula is approximately 21 light-years in width.When the gases and elements of the nebula start to contract due to the pull of its own gravity, it give create a protostar, which understructure startingly receive to roughly 60 million miles across. This is where the star begins to take shape. In order for a star to grow, it will need nuclear fusion to take place, and that requires tremendous amounts of haul and heat. Main Sequence school principals The enormous pressure that is created compresses together elements to form more(prenominal) elements and to create energy. With hydrogen being the least dense and easiest to fuse, stars begin fusing hydrogen first.The side effect of this fusing of nuclei, or nuclear fusion, is the production of two positrons, two neutrinos, and the release of energy. Stars that are in the hydrogen burning process are known to be in the main sequence. Stars wil l return the majority of their lifespan in the main sequence. Using the standardized classification system, astronomers find that about 90% of all stars cluster in thin bands on each the noted diagrams. Red Giant at long last in the stars life, the hydrogen supply in the core will begin to expire, when this happens, the sunninesss core becomes unstable and will begin to contract.Consequently, the outer shell of the star, which consists mainly of hydrogen, will start to expand. During the expansion, it cools and will begin to glow red. The star now resides a red giant phase of its life cycle (Cain, 2009). Practically all stars will evolve identically up to the red giant phase, that depending on the amount of mass a star, the next phase in the life cycle can be greatly different. Supergiants One possible evolution of extremely massive stars, although rare, is to become a supergiant. But what is a supergiant?When the radiation released by the fusion of helium into carbon it causes the red giant to expand unconstipated larger, perhaps into a star roughly 400 times the Suns size. The End of old age Death of a Star White Dwarf A blank dwarf, or a terminal of a star that has collapsed, are the destiny of stars like our sun. This phase in the life cycle is win when the nuclear fuel supply is exhausted. Typically, a white dwarf can have the mass of about six-tenths the mass of our sun, but obtains size considerably smaller than that of the Earth.A white dwarf is formed when the handle of a red giant is ejected as the core burns the last bits and pieces of its nuclear fuel. A white dwarf slowly fades into oblivion as it cools down. Supernova Possibly, exceedingly massive stars can continue to fuse weighed down elements in order to produce more energy. Nevertheless, once iron is formed, it cannot be fused to make more energy. This is because iron has such a high binding energy and is thus very stable. Due to the big gravity, the core will collapse and huge am ounts of gas on the surface will blast out into space.This phase in the stars life cycle has now become a supernova. Neutron Star Following a supernova explosion, the iron core of the star may be enormously massive, and may have an immense force of gravity. It has now become a neutron star, where the negative force, or pushing effect, between neutrons kale the contraction caused by gravity. Pulsar It is possible for a neutron star to spin rapidly following a supernova explosion. A result of this spinning, the neutron star may send out two beams of radio waves, light, and X-rays.These beams radiate in a circle as the star is spinning, and thus appears that the light from the star is pulsing intermittently. This is why it is called a Pulsar. Blackhole provided some extremely massive supergiants, many with a mass more than four times that of our own Sun, may continue contracting until their nuclei are compacted into even more dense matter. The compacting matter forms a tree trunk so dense that it forms a black hole. A black hole is an extremely massive and dense, spectral body with a gravitational pull powerful enough to prevent the escape of light (Newman, 2002). life sentence as We Know It Astronomers believe Earth and all its living organisms are composed of elements formed in the interiors of stars, especially supergiants that exploded as supernovas. As astronomers across the globe scour planetary systems, both within and beyond our galaxy, in the quest to find life, they are centering their attention on each systems livable zone. The habitable zone is where heat radiated from the star is just right to keep a planets water in liquid form (Williams Pollard, 2000), the sweet spot of the solar system.