Milky Way: Types of Stars

The Milky Way contains both the so-called type I stars, brilliant, blue stars; and type II stars, giant red stars. Blue stars tend to be younger because they burn furiously and use up all of their fuel within a few tens of millions of years. Red stars are usually older, and use their fuel at a slower rate that they can sustain for tens of billions of years. The central Milky Way and the halo are largely composed of the type II population. Most of this region is obscured behind dust clouds, which prevent visual observation. Astronomers have been able to detect light from this region at other wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum, however, using radio and infrared telescopes and satellites that detect X rays. Such studies indicate compact objects near the galactic center, probably a massive black hole. A black hole is an object so dense that nothing, not even light, can escape its intense gravity. The center of the galaxy is home to clouds of antimatter particles, which reveal themselves by emitting gamma rays when they meet particles of matter and annihilate. Astronomers believe the antimatter particles provide more evidence for a massive black hole at the Milky Way’s center.

Observations of stars racing around the center also suggest the presence of a black hole. The stars orbit at speeds up to 1.8 million km/h (1.1 million mph)—17 times the speed at which Earth circles the Sun—even though they are hundreds of times farther from the center than Earth is from the Sun. The greater an object’s mass, the faster an object orbiting it at a given distance will move. Whatever lies at the center of the galaxy must have a tremendous amount of mass packed into a relatively small area in order to cause these stars to orbit so quickly at such a distance. The most likely candidate is a black hole.

Surrounding the central region is a fairly flat disk comprising stars of both type II and type I; the brightest members of the latter category are luminous, blue supergiants. Imbedded in the disk, and emerging from opposite sides of the central region, are the spiral arms, which contain a majority of the type I population together with much interstellar dust and gas. One arm passes in the vicinity of the Sun and includes the great nebula in Orion.

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