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Properties of Stars
Classifying Stars
Hertzsprung-Russel
(H-R) Diagram
Star Clusters
Open and Globular
Clusters
Properties of Stars
Mass The single most important
property that determines other
properties of the star.
Luminosity The total amount of
energy (light) that a star emits into
space.
Temperature surface temperature,
closely related to the luminosity and
color of the star.
Spectral type closely related to the
surface temperature
What can we measure directly?
The Easy Ones:
Apparent brightness: a well-
calibrated detector.
Temperature: spectroscopy
Spectral type: spectroscopy
The Hard ones:
Distance: stellar parallax, but the stars
are so farrrrr away
Size: The stars are so far away. Their
small angular size makes it really difficult
to be measured directly.
Mass: Newtons version of Keplers Third
Law
Need to find the right targets
The Apparent Brightness
Apparent brightness
The brightness of the a star as it appears to our
eyes (or detectors).
It depends on both the luminosity AND distance
between the star and the Earth.
The apparent brightness of a star is related to its
luminosity and distance by the formula:
luminosity
apparent brightness
4 (distance) 2
Astronomical Distance
Measuring the Temperature of Stars
Everything with a temperature emit thermal radiation. We can measure the
temperature of the stars or any object by studying the shape of their overall
spectra.
Black Body
An idealized perfect light absorber that absorbs all the photons that strikes it (no
reflection). It re-emits the absorbed energy through thermal radiation, with a
spectrum characterized by the blackbody spectrum.
The shape of the blackbody
spectrum is always the same,
independent of its temperature.
The peak position (in
wavelength) of the blackbody
spectrum depends only on the
temperature, independent of the
blackbodys composition, or
size, etc.
Spectral Type of Stars
Spectral type is closely related to temperature
Spectral Type and Temperature
The spectral features of the
stars are closely related to
the surface temperature of
the star because the
formation of ionized atoms,
the excitation state of the
atoms, and the existence of
molecules in the stellar
atmosphere strongly
depends on the temperature
High temperature
Ionized atoms
Medium temperature
Neutral atoms
Low temperature
Molecules
Determination of Distance
Stellar Parallax
Knowledge of the distance to the
stars is crucial for our
determination of the luminosity
of stars
Current technology allows us to
determine the distance
accurately to within a few
hundred light-years.
Hipparcos mission (European
Space Agency) measured the
stellar parallax of roughly
100,000 stars with precision of a
few milli-arcseconds. So, it can
measure distance of star up to
1,000 light-years away
Absolute Magnitude
Determination of Stellar Mass
Mass is the single most important property of a star. But it is also
difficult to measure
Recall that
4 2
p
2
a3
G (m1 m2 )
B Line-of-Sight
White Dwarf
Eclipsing Binary
About 50% of the stars are in binary star system. There are three
categories of binary star systems:
Eclipsing Binary: is a pair of stars that orbit in the plane of our
line of sight, (measuring the time curve)
Animations source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectroscopic_binary
Algol Eclipsing Binary
Algol (the demon star) is in the
constellation of Perseus.
Algol A: main sequence
star, more massive.
Algol B: subgiant, less
massive.
Spectroscopic Binary
Sometimes only the spectrum from one star is
seen, the other star is too dim.
Sometimes two sets of spectra can be seen at the
same time
Sometimes more than two sets of spectra can be
seen
Mizar is a visual binary system in the
constellation of Big Dipper.
Each star in the visual binary system is also
a spectroscopic binary!
Eclipsing Binary and Stellar Mass
Measurements
Among the three types of binary star systems, the eclipsing binary
system is most important for the determination of stellar mass,
because
Determination of the stellar mass requires knowledge of the
orbital period and distance (in real distance unit, not in
angular separation).
Orbital period is easy to measure, but distance between the stars
is difficult to determine.
For visual binary, we need to know the distance from Earth to
the stars before we can determine the separation between
the stars in the binary system.
For spectroscopic binary, we can calculate the separation
between the stars if we know their orbital speed. However,
we can only determine the line-of-sight speed of the binary
system from Doppler measurement. If the orbits are tilted
with respect to our line-of-sight, then we under estimate the
orbital speed.
If an eclipsing binary is also a spectroscopic binary, then we
know its true orbital speed, and can determine the separation
Luminosity
To directly measure the luminosity of a star (lets say, the Sun), we will
need to surround the Sun completely with detectors, which is impossible.
We can infer the luminosity of the Sun if we know
the distance to the star, and
the stars apparent brightness
Further more, we need to assume that
the star emits energy uniformly in all direction
Then we can calculate its luminosity by the formula:
Luminosity 4d 2 apparent brightness
B 1 10
luminosity
d
4 apparent brightness
Direct Measurement of the Size of the Stars
Except for the Sun, all the stars in the sky are very far away, and their angular
sizes (the size of the star as it appears to observers on Earth, not the physical
size) are all very small. Although the theoretical resolving power of modern
large telescopes (such as the Keck telescope with 10-meter aperture) is about
0.01 arcseconds in the visible wavelength, it is difficult to realize the full
resolution of the large telescopes due to atmospheric seeing effects.
luminosity
r
4 T 4
Properties of Stars: Summary
Mass range: 0.08 Msun to 100 Msun
Luminosity range: 0.00001 Lsun to 1,000,000 Lsun
Size range: 0.01 Rsun for white dwarf to 1,000 Rsun for
supergiants.
Temperature range: 3,000 K for M star to 40,000 for O
stars.
Properties of Stars
Classifying Stars
Spectral Type and
Luminosity Class
Hertzsprung-Russel (H-
R) Diagram
Main Sequence Stars
Giants and
Supergiants
White Dwarf
Clues to Relationships Between
the Properties
General trends of the stars
of Stars
Most of the very brightest
stars are reddish in color.
If we ignore those relatively
few bright red stars, theres
a general trend to the
luminosities and colors
among all the rest of the
stars:
The brighter ones are
white with a little bit of
blue tint,
the more modest ones
are similar to our Sun in
color with a yellowish
white tint, and
the dimmest ones are
barely visible specks of
red.
Hertzsprung- Sizes scale 1 Rsun 10 Rsun 100 Rsun 1000 Rsun
Russell
Diagram
Since there appears to be a
strong correlation between
luminosity and color
(temperature), we put all the
stars on a Luminosity
Temperature plot, and this is
what it looks like:
Russell
Diagram
Notice that
Temperature scale decreases
from left to right.
The scale of luminosity is in
power of 10 (log scale).
Mass increases from lower
right to upper left
Size increases from lower left
to upper right.
Classification of Sizes scale 10 Rsun 100 Rsun 1000 Rsun
1 Rsun
Stars in H-R
Diagram
1. The Main Sequence stars
healthy stars, fusing hydrogen
in the core.
High-mass, high-luminosity,
high-temperature, and short-
lived stars on the upper-left-
hand corner
Low-mass, low-luminosity,
low-temperature, and long-
lived stars on the lower-right-
hand corner
2. The Supergiants,
3. The Giants,
Supergiants and giants are
dying stars, fusing helium and
heavier elements.
4. The White Dwarfs.
dead stars, exposed core of
dead main-sequence stars.
Classification of Stars
Full classification of stars includes both spectral type and luminosity
class:
Spectral type: OBAFGKM
Luminosity Class in descending order:
I: Supergiants
II: Bright giants
III: Giants
IV: Subgiants
V: Main-sequence stars
The full classification of a star includes both a spectral type and
a luminosity class:
The Sun is a G2 V
Proxima Centauri is M5 V
Betelgeuse is M2 I
Sirius A: A1 V
Sirius B: DA2 V