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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Characteristics of the Sun

-
Image
The distance between the sun and the earth varies because the earth travels in an elliptical rather than circular orbit. The distance is roughly 100 times the sun’s diameter. Turbulence in the photosphere forms granules of various sizes and sunspots. Temperature is a measure of kinetic energy . The dense plasma in the center of the sun is roughly 2500 times hotter than the surface. Gases in the corona have escaped from the sun’s surface and have a very high velocity. The sun’s spectral type, G2, indicates that it is composed of hydrogen , helium , calcium , iron and other metals.
Read more

Ecliptic

-
Ecliptic, in astronomy, the apparent great-circle annual path of the sun in the celestial sphere , as seen from the earth . It is so named because eclipses occur only when the moon is on or near this path. The plane of this path, called the plane of the ecliptic, intersects the celestial equator (the projection of the earth's equator on the celestial sphere) at an angle of about 23°27’. This angle is known as the obliquity of the ecliptic and is approximately constant over a period of millions of years, although at present it is decreasing at the rate of 48 seconds of arc in each century and will decrease for several millenniums until it reaches 22°54’, after which it will again increase. The two points at which the ecliptic intersects the celestial equator are called nodes or equinoxes. The sun is at the vernal equinox about March 21 and at the autumnal equinox about September 23. Halfway on the ecliptic between the equinoxes are the summer and winter solstices. The sun arrives a...
Read more

Solar System

-
Image
Solar System, the Sun and everything that orbits the Sun, including the nine planets and their satellites ; the asteroids and comets ; and interplanetary dust and gas. The term may also refer to a group of celestial bodies orbiting another star (see Extrasolar Planets ). In this article, solar system refers to the system that includes Earth and the Sun. The dimensions of the solar system are specified in terms of the mean distance from Earth to the Sun, called the astronomical unit (AU). One AU is 150 million km (about 93 million mi). The most distant known planet, Pluto , orbits about 39 AU from the Sun. Estimates for the boundary where the Sun’s magnetic field ends and interstellar space begins—called the heliopause—range from 86 to 100 AU. The most distant known planetoid orbiting the Sun is Sedna, whose discovery was reported in March 2004. A planetoid is an object that is too small to be a planet. At the farthest point in its orbit, Sedna is about 900 AU from the Sun. Com...
Read more