UNIT IV STARS

Stellar spectra and structure – stellar evolution – Nucleo-synthesis and formation of

elements -Classification of stars – Harvard classification system – Hertsprung-Russel
diagram – Luminosity of star – variable stars – composite stars (white dwarfs, Neutron
stars, black hole, star clusters, supernova and binary stars) – Chandrasekhar limit.

4.1 STELLAR SPECTRA

A star is any massive self-luminous celestial body of gas that shines

by radiation derived from its internal energy sources. Of the tens of billions of trillions
of stars in the observable universe, only a very small percentage are visible to the
naked eye.

A star’s spectrum contains information about its temperature,

chemical composition, and intrinsic luminosity. Most stars are surrounded by outer
layers of gas that are less dense than the core. Photons of specific frequency can be
absorbed by electrons in the diffuse outer layer of gas, causing the electron to change
energy levels.
Eventually the electron will de-excite and jump down to a lower energy level,
emitting a new photon of specific frequency. The direction of this re-emission
however is random so the chances of it traveling in the same path as the original
incident photon is very small. The net effect of this is that the intensity of light at the
wavelength of that photon will be less in the direction of an observer. This means that
the resultant spectrum will show absorption lines or a decrease in intensity
4.2 STELLAR STRUCTURE

The structure of a star can often be thought of as a series of thin nested shells,
somewhat like an onion.
A star during most of its life is a main-sequence star, which consists of a core,
radiative and convective zones, a photosphere, a chromosphere and a corona. The core
is where all the nuclear fusion takes place to power a star.
In the radiative zone, energy from these reactions is transported outward by
radiation, like heat from a light bulb. while in the convective zone, energy is
transported by the roiling hot gases, like hot air from a hairdryer. Massive stars that
are more than several times the mass of the sun is convective in their cores and
radiative in their outer layers, while stars comparable to the sun or less in mass are
radiative in their cores and convective in their outer layers. Intermediate-mass stars of
spectral type A may be radiative throughout.
After those zones come the part of the star that radiates visible light, the
photosphere, which is often referred to as the surface of the star. After that is the
chromosphere, a layer that looks reddish because of all the hydrogen found there.
Finally, the outermost part of a star's atmosphere is the corona, which if super-hot
might be linked with convection in the outer layers.
4.3 KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF STAR

a) Brightness
Astronomers describe star brightness in terms of magnitude and luminosity.
The magnitude of a star is based on a scale more than 2,000 years old, devised by
Greek astronomer Hipparchus around 125 BC, he numbered groups of stars based on
their brightness as seen from Earth the brightest stars were called first magnitude stars,
the next brightest were the second magnitude, and so on up to sixth magnitude, the
faintest visible ones.

b) Colour
Stars come in a range of colors, from reddish to yellowish to blue. The color of
a star depends on surface temperature. A star might appear to have a single color, but
actually emits a broad spectrum of colors, potentially including everything from radio
waves and infrared rays to ultraviolet beams and gamma rays. Different elements or
compounds absorb and emit different colors or wavelengths of light, and by studying a
star's spectrum, one can divine what its composition might be.

c) Surface temperature
Astronomers measure star temperatures in a unit known as the kelvin, with a
temperature of zero K ("absolute zero") equalling minus 273.15 degrees C, or minus
459.67 degrees F. Specifically, the luminosity of a star is proportional to temperature
to the fourth power.

d) Size
Astronomers generally measure the size of stars in terms of the radius of our
sun. For instance, Alpha Centauri A has a radius of 1.05 solar radii (the plural of
radius). Stars range in size from neutron stars, which can be only 12 miles (20
kilometers) wide, to supergiants roughly 1,000 times the diameter of the sun.
The size of a star affects its brightness. Specifically, luminosity is proportional
to radius squared. For instance, if two stars had the same temperature, if one star was
twice as wide as the other one, the former would be four times as bright as the latter.

e) Mass
Astronomers represent the mass of a star in terms of the solar mass, the mass of
our sun. For instance, Alpha Centauri A is 1.08 solar masses. Stars with similar
masses might not be similar in size because they have different densities. For instance,
Sirius B is roughly the same mass as the sun but is 90,000 times as dense, and so is
only a fiftieth its diameter.
 f) Magnetic field
Stars are spinning balls of roiling, electrically charged gas, and thus typically
generate magnetic fields. When it comes to the sun, researchers have discovered its
magnetic field can become highly concentrated in small areas, creating features
ranging from sunspots to spectacular eruptions known as flares and coronal mass
ejections.

g) Metallicity
The metallicity of a star measures the number of "metals" it has that is, any
element heavier than helium. Three generations of stars may exist based on
metallicity. Astronomers have not yet discovered any of what should be the oldest
generation, Population III stars born in a universe without "metals."

4.4 STELLAR EVOLUTION

The life cycles of stars follow patterns based mostly on their initial mass. These
include intermediate-mass stars such as the sun, with half to eight times the mass of
the sun, high-mass stars that are more than eight solar masses, and low-mass stars a
tenth to half a solar mass in size. Objects smaller than a tenth of a solar mass do not
have enough gravitational pull to ignite nuclear fusion some might become failed stars
known as brown dwarfs.
 An intermediate-mass star begins with a cloud that takes about 100,000 years
to collapse into a protostar with a surface temperature of about 6,750 degrees F (3,725
degrees C. After hydrogen fusion starts, the result is a T-Tauri star, a variable star that
fluctuates in brightness. This star continues to collapse for roughly 10 million years
until its expansion due to energy generated by nuclear fusion is balanced by its
contraction from gravity, after which point it becomes a main-sequence star that gets
all its energy from hydrogen fusion in its core.

The greater the mass of such a star, the more quickly it will use its hydrogen
fuel and the shorter it stays on the main sequence. After all the hydrogen in the core is
fused into helium, the star changes rapidly without nuclear radiation to resist it,
gravity immediately crushes matter down into the star's core, quickly heating the star.
This causes the star's outer layers to expand enormously and to cool and glow red as
they do so, rendering the star a red giant.

Helium starts fusing together in the core, and once the helium is gone, the core
contracts and becomes hotter, once more expanding the star but making it bluer and
brighter than before, blowing away its outermost layers. After the expanding shells of
gas fade, the remaining core is left, a white dwarf that consists mostly of carbon and
oxygen with an initial temperature of roughly 180,000 degrees F (100,000 degrees C).
Since white dwarves have no fuel left for fusion, they grow cooler and cooler over
billions of years to become black dwarves too faint to detect. Our sun should leave the
main sequence in about 5 billion years, according to Live Science.

A high-mass star forms and dies quickly. These stars form from protostars in
just 10,000 to 100,000 years. While on the main sequence, they are hot and blue, some
1,000 to 1 million times as luminous as the sun and are roughly 10 times wider. When
they leave the main sequence, they become a bright red supergiant and eventually
become hot enough to fuse carbon into heavier elements. After some 10,000 years of
such fusion, the result is an iron core roughly 3,800 miles (6,000 km) wide, and since
any more fusion would consume energy instead of liberating it, the star is doomed, as
its nuclear radiation can no longer resist the force of gravity.

Then a star reaches a mass of more than 1.4 solar masses, electron pressure
cannot support the core against further collapse, according to NASA. The result is a
supernova. Gravity causes the core to collapse, making the core temperature rise to
nearly 18 billion degrees F (10 billion degrees C), breaking the iron down into
neutrons and neutrinos. In about one second, the core shrinks to about six miles (10
km) wide and rebounds just like a rubber ball that has been squeezed, sending a shock
wave through the star that causes fusion to occur in the outlying layers. The star then
explodes in a so-called Type II supernova.

If the remaining stellar core was less than roughly three solar masses large, it
becomes a neutron star made up nearly entirely of neutrons, and rotating neutron
stars that beam out detectable radio pulses are known as pulsars. If the stellar core was
larger than about three solar masses, no known force can support it against its own
gravitational pull, and it collapses to form a black hole.

4.5 NUCLEO-SYNTHESIS ANF FORMATION OF ELEMENTS

Stellar nucleosynthesis is the creation (nucleosynthesis) of chemical

elements by nuclear fusion reactions within stars. Stellar nucleosynthesis has occurred
since the original creation of hydrogen, helium and lithium during the Big Bang. As
a predictive theory, it yields accurate estimates of the observed abundances of the
elements.
Stars evolve because of changes in their composition (the abundance of their
constituent elements) over their lifespans, first by burning hydrogen (main
sequence star), then helium (horizontal branch star), and progressively burning higher
elements. However, this does not by itself significantly alter the abundances of
elements in the universe as the elements are contained within the star.
Later in its life, a low-mass star will slowly eject its atmosphere via stellar
wind, forming a planetary nebula, while a higher–mass star will eject mass via a
sudden catastrophic event called a supernova. The term supernova nucleosynthesis is
used to describe the creation of elements during the explosion of a massive star
or white dwarf.
The advanced sequence of burning fuels is driven by gravitational collapse and
its associated heating, resulting in the subsequent burning
of carbon, oxygen and silicon. However, most of the nucleosynthesis in the mass
range A = 28–56 (from silicon to nickel) is actually caused by the upper layers of the
star collapsing onto the core, creating a compressional shock wave rebounding
outward. The shock front briefly raises temperatures by roughly 50%, thereby causing
furious burning for about a second. This final burning in massive stars,
called explosive nucleosynthesis or supernova nucleosynthesis, is the final epoch of
stellar nucleosynthesis.
A stimulus to the development of the theory of nucleosynthesis was the
discovery of variations in the abundances of elements found in the universe. The need
for a physical description was already inspired by the relative abundances of the
chemical elements in the solar system. A second stimulus to understanding the
processes of stellar nucleosynthesis occurred during the 20th century, when it was
realized that the energy released from nuclear fusion reactions accounted for the
longevity of the Sun as a source of heat and light.

4.6 Classification of stars – Harvard classification system

The Harvard system is a one-dimensional classification scheme by astronomer
Annie Jump Cannon, who re-ordered and simplified the prior alphabetical system by
Draper. Stars are grouped according to their spectral characteristics by single letters of
the alphabet, optionally with numeric subdivisions. Main-sequence stars vary in
surface temperature from approximately 2,000 to 50,000 K, whereas more-evolved
stars can have temperatures above 100,000 K. Physically, the classes indicate the
temperature of the star's atmosphere and are normally listed from hottest to coldest.
The modern classification system is known as the Morgan–Keenan (MK)
classification. Each star is assigned a spectral class (from the older Harvard spectral
classification, which did not include luminosity and a luminosity class using Roman
numerals as explained below, forming the star's spectral type.

stellar classification is the classification of stars based on

their spectral characteristics. Electromagnetic radiation from the star is analysed by
splitting it with a prism or diffraction grating into a spectrum exhibiting
the rainbow of colours interspersed with spectral lines. Each line indicates a
particular chemical element or molecule, with the line strength indicating the
abundance of that element. The strengths of the different spectral lines vary mainly
due to the temperature of the photosphere.
Most stars are currently classified under the Morgan–Keenan (MK) system.
From hot stars to cool, the order of stellar types is: O, B, A, F, G, K, M. Each letter
class is then subdivided using a numeric digit with 0 being hottest and 9 being coolest
(e.g., A8, A9, F0, and F1 form a sequence from hotter to cooler). The sequence has
been expanded with classes for other stars and star-like objects that do not fit in the
classical system, such as class D for white dwarfs and classes S and C for carbon stars.
With the discovery of brown dwarfs, objects that form like stars but do not
shine through thermonuclear fusion, the system of stellar classification has been
expanded to include spectral types L, T, and Y.

Class O: It includes bluish white stars with surface temperatures typically of 25,000–
50,000 K (although a few O-type stars with vastly greater temperatures have been
described); lines of ionized helium appear in the spectra.
Class B: These stars typically range from 10,000 K to 25,000 K and are also bluish
white but show neutral helium lines.
Class A: The surface temperatures of A-type stars range from 7,400 K to about 10,000
K; lines of hydrogen are prominent, and these stars are white.
Class F: stars are yellow-white, reach 6,000–7,400 K, and display many spectral lines
caused by metals.
Class G: These are yellow, with surface temperatures of 5,000–6,000 K. Sun is also
this kind of star
Class K: stars are yellow to orange, at about 3,500–5,000 K.
Class M: The stars are red, at about 3,000 K, with titanium oxide prominent in their
spectra.
L brown dwarfs have temperatures between about 1,500 and 2,500 K and have
spectral lines caused by alkali metals such as rubidium and sodium and
metallic compounds like iron hydride.
T brown dwarfs have prominent methane absorption in their spectra and
temperatures between about 800 and 1,500 K.
Y brown dwarfs are cooler than 800 K and have spectral lines
from ammonia and water.

4.7 HERTSPRUNG-RUSSEL DIAGRAM

The Hertzsprung–Russell diagram (abbreviated as H–R diagram, HR diagram

or HRD) is a scatter plot of stars showing the relationship between the stars' absolute
magnitudes or luminosities versus their stellar classifications or effective
temperatures.
 The graph in which the absolute magnitudes (intrinsic brightness) of stars are
plotted against their spectral types (temperatures). Of great importance to theories of
stellar evolution, it evolved from charts begun in 1911 by the Danish astronomer Ejnar
Hertzsprung and independently by the U.S. astronomer Henry Norris Russell.

On the diagram stars are ranked from bottom to top in order of decreasing
magnitude (increasing brightness) and from right to left by increasing temperature
(spectral class). Stars of the galactic arm in which the Sun is located tend to fall into
distinct regions on the diagram. The group called the main sequence extends in a
rough diagonal from the upper left of the diagram (hot, bright stars) to the lower right
(dim and cool).

Large, bright, though cool, stars called giants and supergiants appear in the
upper right, and the white dwarfs, dim, small, and hot, lie in the lower left. The Sun
lies near the middle of the main sequence, and stars spend most of their lives on the
main sequence.

As stars burn up the hydrogen in their cores into helium, they become
more luminous and cooler (because they have expanded) and therefore move off the
main sequence into the upper right region of the giants and supergiants. The point at
which stars move off the main sequence can be used to give the age of star clusters,
because stars at the lower end of the main sequence take longer to burn their hydrogen
into helium than stars at the upper end. The most massive stars explode
in supernovas. Stars of a few solar masses eject their outer layers as planetary
nebulae, which have a hot, luminous central star found in the upper left of the
diagram. Stars like the Sun burn down to cool white dwarfs, which are found in the
bottom left of the diagram.

4.8 LUMINOSITY OF STARS

Luminosity, L, is a measure of the total amount of energy radiated by a

star or other celestial object per second. This is therefore the power output of a
star. A star's power output across all wavelengths is called its bolometric
luminosity. Astronomers in practice also measure an object's luminosity in
specific wavebands so that we can discuss an object's X-ray or visible
luminosities for example. This is also used to measure a star's colour as
described on the next page.
Our Sun has a luminosity of 3.84 × 1026 W or J.s-1 which can be denoted by the
symbol Lsol (actually the subscript symbol is normally a dot inside a circle - the
standard astrological symbol for the Sun but this cannot be shown in html).
Rather than always use this exact value it is often more convenient to compare
another star's luminosity L* to the Sun's as a fraction or multiple. Thus if a star
is twice is luminous as the Sun, L*/Lsol = 2. This approach is convenient as the
luminosity of stars varies over a huge range from less than 10-4 to about
106 times that of the Sun so an order of magnitude ratio is often sufficient.
Star’s luminosity depending upon 2 factors.
1. Temperature: A black body radiates power at a rate related to its temperature -
the hotter the black body, the greater its power output per unit surface area. An
incandescent or filament light bulb is an everyday example. As it gets hotter it
gets brighter and emits more energy from its surface. The relationship between
power and temperature is not a simple linear one though. The power radiated
by a black body per unit surface area is given varies with the fourth power of
the black body's effective temperature, Teff. So; the power
output, l ∝ T or l = σT for a perfect black where σ is a constant called
4 4

the Stefan-Boltzmann constant.

2. 2. Size (radius): If two stars have the same effective temperature but one is
larger than the other it has more surface area. The power output per unit surface
area is fixed by equation 4.3 so the star with greater surface area must be
intrinsically more luminous than the smaller one. This becomes apparent when
we plot stars on an HR diagram.
4.9 VARIABLE STAR
When we look up at the night sky it is easy to imagine that the stars are
unchanging. Apart from twinkling due to the effects of our atmosphere stars appear
fixed and constant to the untrained eye. Careful observations, some even done with
the naked eye, show that some stars do in fact appear to change in brightness over
time. Some exhibit periodic behaviour, brightening quickly then diminishing in
brightness slowly only to repeat themselves. With some these changes take place over
several days whilst others occur in a matter of hours or many months. Other stars
exhibit a once-off dramatic change in brightness by orders of magnitude before fading
away to obscurity. All of these are examples of what are termed variable stars. A
variable star is simply one whose brightness (or other physical property such as
radius or spectral type) changes over time.
At a fundamental level all stars are variable as they evolve and change over
time (from a main sequence to a red giant star as in the Sun's case for example).
Furthermore, we can infer that all stars are likely to vary their light output to some
extent due to variations caused by phenomena such as sunspots. In the section
however, we focus on stars with a measurable change in brightness. In order to try and
understand variable stars, astronomers have sought to classify them according to
observable properties. The diagram below the main types of variable stars.
 The first criteria for classification are whether a star in an intrinsic or an extrinsic
variable. Intrinsic variables are those in which the change in brightness is due to
some change within the star itself such as in pulsating stars like the
Cepheids. Extrinsic variables are those in which the light output changes due to
some process external to the star itself.

1) Intrinsic Variables
These are stars which vary their light output, hence their brightness, by some
change within the star itself. They are an extremely important and useful group of
stars to astronomers as they provide a wealth of information about the internal
structure of stars and models of stellar evolution. Intrinsic variables are further
classified as pulsating stars and eruptive (cataclysmic variables).

a) Pulsating Variable Stars

Pulsating variable stars are intrinsic variables as their variation in brightness is
due to a physical change within the star. This is due to the periodic expansion and
contraction of the surface layers of the stars. This means the star actually increases
and decreases in size periodically.
i) Cepheids
Cepheids are very luminous, massive variables with periods of 1 -70 days. They
are named after the first-such pulsating variable, δ Cephei discovered by John
Goodricke in 1784. Their amplitude range is typically 0.5 to 2 magnitudes.
 Type I Classical Cepheids - These stars take their name from δ Cephei. Most
have a period of between 5 -10 days and an amplitude range of 0.5 - 2.0
magnitudes in visible light
 Type II W Virginis - It was named after the first star identified in this group,
W Virginis. W Virginis -type Cepheids are intrinsically less luminous by 1.5 - 2
magnitude and they have an amplitude range of 0.3 - 1.2 magnitudes.
ii) RR Lyrae
These old population II giant stars are mostly found in globular clusters. They
are characterised by their short periods, usually about 1.5 hours to a day and have a
brightness range of 0.3 to 2 magnitudes.
iii) RV Tauri
RV Tauri variables are yellow supergiant, mostly G and K-class stars. Their
distinctive light curves show alternating deep and shallow minima with the period
equal to the time between two successive deep minima. Typical values are 20 - 100
days.
iv) Long-Period Variables (LPVs)
The first pulsating variable discovered was the long-period variable Mira. They are
cool red giants or supergiant and have periods of months to years.
 Mira -Type - Mira itself has a period of 331 days and varies its brightness by
almost 6 magnitudes in the visible waveband
 Semiregular Variables (SR) - They are giant and supergiant stars with periods
ranging from a few days to several years and the change in brightness is
typically less than two magnitudes

b) eruptive (cataclysmic variables)

Eruptive variables can exhibit significant and rapid changes in their luminosity
due to violent outbursts caused by processes within the star. There is a wide variety of
eruptive or cataclysmic variables.
i) Supernovae
A supernova is a cataclysmic stage towards the end of a star's life that is
characterised by a sudden and dramatic rise in brightness. A typical supernova may
see a star become brighter by up to 20 magnitudes to an absolute magnitude of about -
15. This means that a typical supernova may outshine the rest its galaxy for several
days or a few weeks.
ii) Novae
A nova occurs in a close binary system and is characterised by a rapid and
unpredictable rise in brightness of 7 - 16 magnitudes within a few days. The eruptive
event is followed by a steady decline back to the pre-nova magnitude over a few
months.
iii) Recurrent Novae
These are similar to novae with a change in magnitude of 7 - 16 and a period of
outburst of up to about 200 days. They show two or more outburst over recorded
observations.
iv) Dwarf Novae
These are intrinsically faint stars that exhibit a sudden increase in brightness by
2 to 5 magnitudes over a few days with intervals of weeks or months between
outbursts.
v) Symbiotic Stars
These systems have a red giant and a white dwarf in a semi-detached binary.
Rather than material being accreted by gravitational attraction as with a recurrent
nova, in symbiotic systems material is ejected from the surface of the red giant due to
stellar wind.
vi) R Coronae Borealis Stars
Unlike most variable stars, R Coronae stars spend most of their time at
maximum brightness but sometimes decrease in brightness by up to 9 magnitudes at
irregular intervals. They they take a few months or a year to return to their normal
maximum brightness. These rare stars are carbon-rich.
2) Extrinsic Variables
Extrinsic variables are those in which the light output varies either due to
processes external to the star itself or due to the rotation of the star. The two main
classes of extrinsic stars are the eclipsing binaries and rotating variables.

a) Eclipsing binaries
They are regarded as variable too in that as one of the component stars is
eclipsed by the other, the total brightness of the system decreases. The light curves
produced by eclipsing binaries show distinctive periodic minima.
b) Rotating Variables
Our Sun sometimes has sunspots visible on its surface. These cooler regions
appear darker than the surrounding areas. As the Sun rotates the sunspots appear to
move across its surface. If we view a side of the Sun with a lot of sunspots. As a star
with star spots rotates, its brightness changes slightly. Stars exhibiting such behaviour
are called rotating variables.

4.10 COMPOSITE STARS

a) White Dwarfs

A star ends up at the end of its life depends on the mass it was born with. Stars
that have a lot of mass may end their lives as black holes or neutron stars. A low or
medium mass star (with mass less than about 8 times the mass of our Sun) will
become a white dwarf.
A white dwarf is stellar core left behind after a dying star has exhausted their
nuclear fuel and expelled it outer layer, creating a planetary nebula. Only the hot core
of the star remains. This core becomes a very hot white dwarf, with a temperature
exceeding 100,000 Kelvin. Unless it is accreting matter from a nearby star, the white
dwarf cools down over the next billion years or so.
A typical white dwarf is half as massive as the Sun, yet only slightly bigger
than Earth. An Earth-sized white dwarf has a density of 1 x 109 kg/m3. Earth itself has
an average density of only 5.4 x 103 kg/m3. That means a white dwarf is 200,000 times
as dense as Earth. This makes white dwarfs one of the densest collections of matter,
surpassed only by neutron stars.
In 2013 Hubble found signs of Earth-like planets in the atmospheres of a pair
of white dwarf stars roughly 150 light-years away and only 625 million years old.
Hubble's spectroscopic observations identified silicon in the atmospheres of the two
white dwarfs, a major ingredient of the rocky material that forms Earth and other
terrestrial planets in the Solar System. Silicon may have come from asteroids that
were shredded by the white dwarfs’ gravity when they veered too close to the stars.
The rocky debris likely formed a ring around the dead stars, which then funnelled the
material inwards.

b) Neutron Star
Neutron stars are the remains of the cores of massive stars that have reached
the end of their lives. They are one of the two possible evolutionary endpoints of
the most massive stars, the other being black holes. The densest stellar objects,
apart from perhaps, whatever exists at the heart of a black hole, neutron stars are some
of the universe's most extreme objects.

The life of a star, no matter its size, is a balancing act between the inward
"push" of gravity and the outward push provided by photons generated as they
conduct nuclear fusion, the forging of heavy atomic nuclei from light nuclei, at their
cores. When stars run out of hydrogen to fuse into helium, they reach the end of
their main sequence of nuclear-fuel-burning lives. The outward energy ceases, and
gravity wins out, causing the core of the star to collapse in on itself. As this happens,
nuclear fusion in the outer shell of the star continues and this causes these outer layers
to "puff out." These shed outer layers cool around the still collapsing core, which, if it
is massive enough, will begin a new round of nuclear fusion, forging helium into
heavier elements like carbon.
Even this heavy element isn't dense enough to prevent massive cores from
further collapse. As this occurs the gravitational pressure is so intense that the
negatively-charged electrons and positively-charged protons that comprise the iron
nuclei in this stellar core are crushed together, creating a sea of uncharged, or
neutral neutrons.
Some massive stellar cores are at this point saved from further collapse by a
quantum phenomenon called "neutron degeneracy pressure," which occurs when such
a density is reached that neutrons can no longer be packed any closer together, leaving
them as neutron stars.
The collapse of massive stellar cores results in an object that has from one to
two times the mass of the sun, but only has a width of between 6 and 12 miles (10 and
20 kilometers). Imagine the sun reduced in size until it is a sphere that sits
comfortably within the city of New York, which is 35 miles wide (56 kilometers
wide).
Being reduced from a diameter of 870,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers) to just
12 miles (20 kilometers) would have a striking effect on the material within it, and this
is definitely the case for neutron stars. NASA estimates that a single sugar cube
comprised of this neutron-rich matter would weigh around 1 trillion kilograms (or 1
billion tons) if it were brought to Earth. That's a sugar cube that weighs as much as
3,000 Empire State Buildings or the entire human race.
c) Black hole

A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that

nothing, including light and other electromagnetic waves, has enough energy to
escape it.
A black hole is a cosmic body of extremely intense gravity from which even
light cannot escape. Black holes usually cannot be observed directly, but they can be
“observed” by the effects of their enormous gravitational fields on nearby matter
Black holes are some of the strangest and most fascinating objects in space.
They're extremely dense, with such strong gravitational attraction that not even light
can escape their grasp.

The Milky Way could contain over 100 million black holes, though detecting
these gluttonous beasts is very difficult. At the heart of the Milky Way lies a
supermassive black hole — Sagittarius A*. The colossal structure is about 4 million
times the mass of the sun and lies approximately 26,000 light-years away from Earth,
according to a statement from NASA.
The first image of a black hole was captured in 2019 by the Event Horizon
Telescope (EHT) collaboration. The striking photo of the black hole at the center of
the M87 galaxy 55 million light-years from Earth thrilled scientists around the world.
Black holes are expected to form via two distinct channels. According to the first
pathway, they are stellar corpses, so they form when massive stars die.
Stars whose birth masses are above roughly 8 to 10 times mass of our sun,
when they exhaust all their fuel — their hydrogen — they explode and die leaving
behind a very compact dense object, a black hole. The resulting black hole that is left
behind is referred to as a stellar mass black hole and its mass is of the order of a few
times the mass of the sun.

Not all stars leave behind black holes, stars with lower birth masses leave
behind a neutron star or a white dwarf. Another way that black hole’s form is from the
direct collapse of gas, a process that is expected to result in more massive black holes
with a mass ranging from 1000 times the mass of the sun up to even 100,000 times the
mass of the sun. This channel circumvents the formation of the traditional star, and is
believed to operate in the early universe and produce more massive black hole seeds.

Albert Einstein first predicted the existence of black holes in 1916, with
his general theory of relativity. The term "black hole" was coined many years later in
1967 by American astronomer John Wheeler. After decades of black holes being
known only as theoretical objects.
The first black hole ever discovered was Cygnus X-1, located within the Milky
Way in the constellation of Cygnus, the Swan. Astronomers saw the first signs of the
black hole in 1964 when a sounding rocket detected celestial sources of X-
rays according to NASA. The closest black hole to Earth is dubbed "The Unicorn" and
is situated approximately 1,500 light-years away.
d) Star clusters:

Star clusters are large groups of stars held together by self-gravitation.

Galaxies are generally larger than star clusters, too. Galaxies can contain thousands or
more star clusters, and many molecular clouds, and dark matter. There are two types
of star clusters.

i) Open (Galactic) Clusters

Open clusters are so-named due to the fact that the individual component stars
are easily resolved through a telescope. Some examples such as the Hyades and
Pleiades are so close that the individual stars can be clearly distinguished by the
naked eye. They are sometimes called galactic clusters due to their location on the
dust, spiral arms on the plane of spiral galaxies. Stars in an open cluster have a
common origin - they formed from the same initial giant molecular cloud. Clusters
typically contain a few hundred stars though this can vary from as low as a few dozen
up to a few thousand.
Stars within an open cluster are only loosely bound by gravity. As the
cluster rotates around the galaxy it eventually disperses due to gravitational
perturbations with other objects in the galaxy. Whilst our Sun is likely to have initially
formed in an open cluster there is now no discernible clustering with nearby stars.
Open clusters are therefore usually relatively young objects. Some, such as the
Pleiades still show evidence of nebulosity suggesting their recent formation. Open
cluster stars belong to Population I; they are young and have high metallicities.
Clusters range from a couple to 20 or so parsecs across.

ii) Globular Clusters

Globular clusters contain several thousand to one million stars in
spherical, gravitationally-bound system. Located mostly in the halo surrounding the
galactic plane they comprise the oldest stars in the galaxy. These Population II stars
are highly evolved but with low metallicities. Clusters are so old that any star higher
than a G or F-class will have already evolved off the main sequence. There is little
free dust or gas found in globular clusters so no new star formation is taking place in
them. Stellar densities within the inner regions of a globular cluster are very high
compared with regions such as those around the Sun.
e) Supernova:
A supernova is the biggest explosion that humans have ever seen. Each blast is
the extremely bright, super-powerful explosion of a star.
Causes of Super nova
one type of supernova is caused by the “last hurrah” of a dying massive star.
This happens when a star at least five times the mass of our sun goes out with a
fantastic bang!
Massive stars burn huge amounts of nuclear fuel at their cores, or centers. This
produces tons of energy, so the centre gets very hot. Heat generates pressure, and the
pressure created by a star’s nuclear burning also keeps that star from collapsing.
A star is in balance between two opposite forces. The star’s gravity tries to squeeze
the star into the smallest, tightest ball possible. But the nuclear fuel burning in the
star’s core creates strong outward pressure. This outward push resists the inward
squeeze of gravity.
When a massive star runs out of fuel, it cools off. This causes the pressure to
drop. Gravity wins out, and the star suddenly collapses. Imagine something one
million times the mass of Earth collapsing in 15 seconds! The collapse happens so
quickly that it creates enormous shock waves that cause the outer part of the star to
explode!
Usually a very dense core is left behind, along with an expanding cloud of hot
gas called a nebula. A supernova of a star more than about 10 times the size of our sun
may leave behind the densest objects in the universe—black holes.
second type of supernova can happen in systems where two stars orbit one
another and at least one of those stars is an Earth-sized white dwarf. A white dwarf is
what's left after a star the size of our sun has run out of fuel. If one white dwarf
collides with another or pulls too much matter from its nearby star, the white dwarf
can explode.
These spectacular events can be so bright that they outshine their entire
galaxies for a few days or even months. They can be seen across the universe.
Astronomers believe that about two or three supernovas occur each century in galaxies
like our own Milky Way. Because the universe contains so many galaxies,
astronomers observe a few hundred supernovas per year outside our galaxy. Space
dust blocks our view of most of the supernovas within the Milky Way.
Stars generate the chemical elements needed to make everything in our
universe. At their cores, stars convert simple elements like hydrogen into heavier
elements. These heavier elements, such as carbon and nitrogen, are the elements
needed for life.Only massive stars can make heavy elements like gold, silver, and
uranium. When explosive supernovas happen, stars distribute both stored-up and
newly-created elements throughout space.
 NASA scientists use a number of different types of telescopes to search for and
then study supernovas. One example is the NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic
Telescope Array) mission, which uses X-ray vision to investigate the universe.
NuSTAR is helping scientists observe supernovas and young nebulas to learn more
about what happens leading up to, during, and after these spectacular blasts.

f) Binary Stars
A binary star is a system of two gravitationally bound stars that orbit a common
center of mass called a barycenter.

Stars in a binary system do not necessarily have the same mass, size or
brightness. The larger star of a binary couple is called the primary star, while the
smaller one is known as the secondary star or the companion star.

Binary stars are of immense importance to astronomers as they allow the

masses of stars to be determined. A binary system is simply one in which two stars
orbit around a common centre of mass, that is they are gravitationally bound to each
other. Actually most stars are in binary systems. Perhaps up to 85% of stars are in
binary systems with some in triple or even higher-multiple systems.
The orbital periods and distances of binaries vary enormously. Some systems
are so close that the surfaces of the stars are practically touching each other and can
exchange material. Others may be separated by a few thousand Astronomical Units
and have orbital periods of hundreds of years.
 Sir William Herschel (1738-1822) noted the apparent closeness of many stars
and systematically observed them. He compiled a catalog of about 703 pairs of stars
within a couple of arcseconds to each other

This diagram shows how the two stars in a binary system each have an
elliptical orbit (can be almost circular in some cases). They share a common focus
which is the centre of mass or bary center of the system and orbit around this point.
The radius vector joining the two stars always cuts through the barycentre.
Binary systems may have highly elliptical orbits as shown above. In these
cases, the eccentricity, e, is closer to 1. If e is close to 0 the orbits will be more
circular.
Types of binary stars:
 Visual binaries.
 Spectroscopic binaries.
 Eclipsing binaries.
 Astrometric binaries.

4.11 Chandrasekhar limit.

Chandrasekhar Limit is the maximum mass possible for a stable white

dwarf star. Chandrasekhar Limit is the maximum mass at which a star near the end of
its life cycle can become a white dwarf and above which the star will collapse to form
a neutron star or black hole. The currently accepted value of the Chandrasekhar Limit
for a white dwarf star is generally considered to be 1.4 solar masses.
 Subramanian Chandrashekhar an Indian American astrophysics was awarded
the Nobel prize in physics in 1983. He received the price for his theoretical work on
the structure and evolution of stars
There are two equal pressure acts on a stable star
1. Pressure due to gravity. It is an invert pressure which tries to compressed
this whole star
2. Thermal pressure due to nuclear fusion. It is an outward pressure which
compensate the pressure due to the gravity
As star ages is nuclear fusion diminishes leading to decrease in nuclear fusion
processes. As gravitational pressure continuous to increase it causes the stars core to
collapse leading to formation of a white draft
In white dwarf star, electron degeneracy pressure plays and crucial role in
balancing the force of gravity and preventing further compression. For white dwarf
star are remind to be stable, it's total mass must be less than 1.4 times the mass of
the Sun
Once the total mass of the white dwarf star suppresses 1.4 times the mass of the
sun the electron degeneracy pressure decreases, resulting in further compression of the
white dwarf star into either a neutron star or black hole. The critical threshold of 1.4
times the solar mass plays a crucial role in determining the stability of the white drop
star or its potential for further compression into either a neutron star or black hole.
Chandrashekhar limit as approximately 1.4 times the mass of the Sun or about
1.4 solar mass