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Stars Formation
Stars Formation
Stars Formation
Star Formation
• Gravitational attraction causes the core of the • After the Big Bang
contracting cloud to reach ~ 10, 000 K • According to the Big Bang theory, the universe is
• The temperature necessary to fuse two hydrogen thought to have begun around 13.8 billion years
nuclei into one helium nucleus ago as an infinitesimally small, infinitely hot,
infinitely dense, something –
• The helium nucleus has slightly less mass than two
hydrogen nuclei • A singularity –that contained all the matter and
energy that is in the universe today
• The difference in mass is the source of a star’s
energy • The theory does not address “what came before”
• It describes what came after the beginning
• The red shift data measures the expansion of space • Space is full of microwave radiation coming from
itself all directions
• Galaxies are not traveling faster than the speed of • It amounts to about 400 photons per cubic
light centimeter with a spectrum of nearly a perfect
black body
• The space in which the galaxies are located is
expending so the relative to their “local” space the • The temperature of this microwave radiation is
are not traveling faster than light 2.72548 Kelvin
• Einstein’s light speed limit is safe • Black body radiation comes from optically thick
materials in thermal equilibrium
• Photons are constantly randomizing their energies
by collisions, absorptions and emissions by charged
particles
• The universe is optically transparent-it is not of a
uniform temperature
• The universe was a tiny hot gaseous plasma • The universe went through an expansionary phase
consisting of packets of "primal" particles at that was faster than the speed of light (space-time
extremely high energies is not limited by the speed of light, only objects
"within" space-time are)
• The universe was smaller than the size of a proton
• In this brief interval of Inflation, the "observable"
• During this phase physicists believe matter and
universe expanded by a factor of about 10^70 from
energy were not separated as they are currently
being unimaginably smaller than a subatomic
• The four primary forces of the universe as we know particle to about the size of a grapefruit
them today were believed to be one united force
• That is the equivalent of going from about the size
• The temperature of the universe was 1 x 10^32 K of a grape to the current size of the observable
universe in the blink of an eye
• It also began to instantaneously expand and cool
extremely fast
• Inflation was a period of super cooled expansion • After Inflation, the universe slowed down to the
and the temperature dropped by a factor of normal "Hubble Rate“ of expansion
100,000 or so and continued to be cool during this
phase • As the universe continued to cool, the nucleons
were formed
• When Inflation ended the temperature returned to
the pre-Inflationary temperature, back up by a • This early formation phase is called the Big Bang
factor of 100,000 Nucleosynthesis (BBN)
• This period is called "reheating“ • With the temperature falling below 10 billion
• The universe began its current expansion rate Kelvin, BBN took place from about ten seconds to
• The four fundamental forces - gravity, the about twenty minutes
electromagnetic force, the strong nuclear force, • Protons, neutrons, electrons-basis of atoms
and the weak nuclear force - formed and then
separated • The BBN theoretical calculations result in a nuclei
abundance of about 75% hydrogen (1 proton
• The laws of physics and the four forces of nature
began to apply nucleus), about 25% helium (2 protons and 2
neutrons in the nucleus), and about 0.01% of
• Reheating ended at about 10^-10th of a second deuterium (1 proton and 1 neutron nucleus)
• Observed hydrogen and helium abundances in • About 70,000 years after the Big Bang, radiation
early distant galaxies are very consistent with the and matter were about equal in density, shortly
above theoretical calculations thereafter matter began to dominate
• It is considered "strong evidence" for the Big Bang • For the next 310,000 years the universe continued
Theory to expand and cool, but was still fiery hot and dark
• After the first twenty minutes the universe settled • Any visible light was immediately scattered by
down to a much longer period of expansion and collisions with the ubiquitous electrons and
cooling protons
• High energy radiation (photons) dominated the • It contained only the simplest elements, mostly
cosmos hydrogen and helium ions
• As the universe continued to cool, more and more • As the universe cooled further, the electrons (with
matter was created a negative charge) begin to get captured by the
ions (with a positive charge) forming atoms
• Expansion caused radiation to lose more energy
(electrically neutral)
than matter so that after a while, matter (nuclei)
particles exceeded massless particles (photons) • This process happened relatively fast and is known
as "recombination“
• The first bits of structure began to form
• The universe had become transparent • The most massive star that can form today is
thought to only be about 150 solar masses
• The first early radiation that could freely travel was
the CMB, the remnants of which we can detect in • This first generation of stars probably lasted just a
the current universe 13.8 billion years later million years or so, and then detonated as
supernovae
• 380,000 years is the earliest point in time we can
ever look back and "see" because everything • Creating heavier elements that are spread out into
before that was part of the dark ages space
• The Sun is a third-generation star
H-R diagram
Surface temperature (T)
Luminosity (L)
Radius
Distance (d)
(R)
• Since they don't shine by optical light, IR and radio • Large clouds of gas are rotating slowly
telescopes are used to investigate them • Large radius
• Star formation begins when the denser parts of the • Gravity causes gas clouds to shrink
cloud core collapse under their own weight/gravity
• Smaller radius
• These cores typically have masses around 104 solar
• Angular momentum of shrinking gas
masses in the form of gas and dust
cloud is conserved
• The cores are denser than the outer cloud, so they
collapse first • Stays constant
• As the cores collapse, they fragment into clumps • Mass stays the same
around 0.1 parsecs in size and 10 to 50 solar • Angular momentum = I x
masses in mass
• These clumps then form into protostars and the (Moment of Inertia x Angular Velocity)
whole process takes about 10 millions years • As gas cloud shrinks to form a sphere its rotation
its angular velocity ,rotational speed increases