Basics of Astronomy

PREPARED BY-OJAS DHAMAPURKAR

Table of contents

 Stars
 Basic terms related to Universe
 The Solar System
 The Earth
 Basic theories about formation of Universe
STARS

 Why do stars shine?

 Young Star(One that emit light in visible region)
Gravity greater than fusion
 Mid Star(One which radiate heat through convection and radiation to the surface)
 Adult Star(One in which the pressure energy and gravity counterbalances each
other
 What do star contain?
 90% Hydrogen & 10% Helium(Changes overtime)
 Measured with Spectroscopy(Particular wavelength at surface)
 How number of stars are calculated?
1. Overall brightness of galaxy method
2. Mass of Milky way method

How luminosity are measured?

 The fainter the star more is the magnitude number
 Logarithmic audio and visual stimuli
 New technique:-Jansky method(Radio Astronomy;W/m2)
How is distance of star
measured?

1. Parallax method(1 parsec=3.26 Light

Years)
2. Apparent Brightness decreases with
square of distance(Cepheid variable)
3. Units of distances
 A.U.=15 crore kilometers
 Light year=9.46 trillion kms
 Parasec=3.26 Light years
How mass of stars is
measured?
 Binary nature
 Kepler’s third law
 Ratio of masses
M1*L1=M2*L2
TYPES OF STARS
 Depending on mass
1. Less luminous
2. More luminous

• Depending on surface temperature

1. Less than 4000 K(Infrared)
2. More than 7000K(Ultarviolet)

• Type of death
1. White dwarfs
2. Super giants
Basic terms related to Universe

 Novae and SuperNovae

Novae(Less accretion) & Supernovae(More accretion)
Cepheids(Constantly fluctuating Brightness)
Pulsars(Rapidly Spinning Neutron star)
Brown Dwarfs(Very low mass stars)
Comets(Icy rocks with head and tail)
Black Hole(Very high density perfectly black body)
Dark Energy(Constitute about 70% of Universe)
The Solar System

 Sun(Core,Radiative Zone,Convective zone,Photosphere,Chromosphere,Corona)

 Solar wind(Magnetic Corona effect)
 Solar Sailing(Bombardement of photons on photo sensitive materials)
 Kuiper belt(Iced Rocky belt after Neptune)
 Oort cloud(Cloud containing icy rocks)
 Saturn Rings(Rocks formed by one of its moon)
The Earth

 Magnetic field(Earth core currents)

 Ice Ages
 Northern Lights(Interaction of solar particles with earth atmosphere
Basic theories about formation of Earth

 Buffon’s Hypothesis(Comet theory)

 Gaseous Hypothesis(Cloud of gas)
 Nebular Hypothesis(Nebular Solidification)
 Tidal Hypothesis(Two Nebulae)
 Planetesimal Hypothesis(Two heavenly bodies)
 Big Bang Hypothesis(Earth and Universe)
 Binary Hypothesis(Sun as binary star system)
 Supernovae Hypothesis(Companion star as giant star which exploded)
References

 Croswell, K., Magnificent Universe, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999
 Hawking, S. W., A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes,
NewYork: Bantam Books, 1988
 Guth, A., The Inflationary Universe, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1997.
 Rees, M., Our Cosmic Habitat, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.
ANY QUESTIONS
Thank You