ISP 205 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Red Supergiant Star, Triple-Alpha Process, Degenerate Matter
Document Summary
Week 10: lives and deaths of stars; ch. Helium capture reactions through high mass stars at the end of their life span make most of the elements necessary for life like oxygen. Stellar core contracts and heat up if fusion isn"t operating. Contain stars of same age but at different life stages, lets us make observations. High mass: protostar, blue main sequence star, red supergiant, helium-core fusion supergiant, multiple shell fusion supergiant, supernova, neutron star or black hole. Low mass: protostar, yellow main sequence star, red giant, helium core fusion, double shell fusion red giant, planetary nebula, white dwarf. Radius expands, and drops and then goes back and forth going up and down a few more times before dropping a lot. Star clusters will have many more stars whereas one with one star will be easier to track because it"s only one star instead of many. Luminosity doesn"t change much but radius gets much larger.