This Is A Nice Little Website Which I Used To Outline My Life Of A Star Series.

... why.

There are no aliens - so the only thing we could use this as is like a nuke - but that would destroy the entire Earth xD

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Can you kill a star with iron?

Since the energy required to fuse iron is more than the energy that you get from doing it, could you use iron to kill a star like our sun?

I read this article when answering a question on quotev and it’s fascinating!

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When can I move???

That’s so gorgeous though. I hate artificial lighting. These pictures seem so extraordinary and gorgeous but most people don’t know that the sky EVERYWHERE is gorgeous but our lighting just ruins it. 

I remember one time when I went out in the middle of Arizona and I could just barely see the Milky Way. It’s quite a sight. I wish we were able to see it every night.

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Summer Milky Way at Boddington, Western Australia

Nikon d5500 - 50mm - ISO 3200 - f/2.8 - Foreground: 9 x 15 seconds - Sky: 26 x 30 seconds - iOptron SkyTracker - Hoya Red Intensifier filter

How do I constantly forget how beautiful the universe is?

Also, this is true, Jewels DEFINITELY aren’t as bright as stars!

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A Stellar Jewel Box: Open Cluster NGC 290 : Jewels don’t shine this bright – only stars do. Like gems in a jewel box, though, the stars of open cluster NGC 290 glitter in a beautiful display of brightness and color. The photogenic cluster, pictured here, was captured in 2006 by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. Open clusters of stars are younger, contain few stars, and contain a much higher fraction of blue stars than do globular clusters of stars. NGC 290 lies about 200,000 light-years distant in a neighboring galaxy called the Small Cloud of Magellan (SMC). The open cluster contains hundreds of stars and spans about 65 light years across. NGC 290 and other open clusters are good laboratories for studying how stars of different masses evolve, since all the open cluster’s stars were born at about the same time. via NASA

Okay, that is really funny lol

Also - I’m back from my self-imposed vacation! I’m drafting the next chapter and starting my post schedule tomorrow, so look forward to new content coming soon!

I hope you’re all doing well :)

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Here’s some physics.

Goregous :O

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Comet Swan

Well TECHNICALLY it’s a helium-4 nucleus

I guess I can see where the confusion comes from

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first post on Reddit lets go

Today's Moon Phase!

Keep track of the Moon on MoonGiant as it does it's monthly dance around the Earth

Full Moon day!!!

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THE LIFE OF A STAR: CLASSIFICATION

In order to understand the life of a star, we must understand star classification.

        And there are SO many different ways to classify a star.

        In star classification, understanding the relationship between color and temperature is crucial. The greater the temperature of the star, the bluer they are (at their hottest, around 50,000 degrees Celcius), while red stars are cooler (at their coolest, around 3,000 degrees Celcius). This occurs on a wide range (fun fact: stars only come in red, orange, yellow, white, and blue, because stars are approximately something called a "black body"). For example, our Sun is a yellow star with a surface temperature of 5,500 degrees Celcius (The Life of a Star).

        But why is this so? In order to understand that, I'm going to tell you about how stars live at all. This is what will determine the entire life of a star - something we'll be focusing on throughout this series. Two words: nuclear fusion.

        Nuclear fusion is "a reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei are combined to form one or more different atomic nuclei and subatomic particles (neutrons or protons). The difference in mass between the reactants and products is manifested as either the release or absorption of energy." (Wikipedia) And this is where nuclear fusion gets REALLY important to stars. Throughout their lives, stars undergo nuclear fusion in their core. This is mostly in the form of fusing two or more hydrogen atoms into one or more helium atoms. This releases energy in the form of light (the pressure of nuclear fusion in the core also prevents the star from collapsing under the weight of gravity, something we'll get to later). The energy transports to the surface of the star and then radiates at an "effective temperature." (Britannica) 

        Stars are different colors due to differing amounts of energy. This is best explained by Einstein's e=mc2 or the mass-energy equivalence. In other words, the more mass something has, the more energy, and vice versa. Stars with greater mass undergo more nuclear fusion - and as such - emit more energy/temperature. And so, the bigger the star, the greater the temperature, the bluer the star; and the smaller the star, the lower the temperature, the redder the star (Universe Today). Another way to think about this is this: the hotter something is, the shorter frequency of energy it emits. Blue light has a shorter frequency than red light, and so, higher energy/temperature stars are bluer.

        Another important classification of a star is its luminosity (or the brightness, or the magnitude of the star). (The Life of a Star)

        The most famous diagram classifying stars is the Herzsprung Russell Diagram, shown in this article's picture. The x-axis of the diagram shows surface temperature, hottest left, and coolest right. The y-axis shows brightness, brighter higher, and dimmer lower. There are main groups on the diagram. 

        Most stars fall in a long band stretching diagonally, starting in the upper left corner and ending in the right lower corner, this is called the main sequence. The main sequence shows stars which mostly use their life going through nuclear fusion. This process takes up most of a star's life. Most stars which are hotter and more luminous fall in the upper left corner of the main sequence and are blue in color. Most stars that have lower-masses are cooler, and redder falls in the lower right. Yellow stars like our Sun fall in the middle. 

         The group located in the lower-left corner are smaller, fainter, and bluer (hotter) and are called White Dwarfs. These stars are a result of a star like our Sun one day running out of Hydrogen.

          The group located right above the righter's main sequence is larger, cooler, brighter, and a more orange-red or red, are called Red Giants. They are also part of the dying process of a star like our sun. Above them in the upper right corner are Red Super Giants, massive, bright, cooler, and much more luminous. To the left of the Red Super Giants are similar stars which are just hotter and bluer and are called the Blue Super Giants.

        That explains the most famous star classifying diagram. The important thing to remember is the data on the chart is not what a star will be like it's whole life. A star's position on the chart will change like our Sun will one day do.

        In a ThoughtCo. article on the Hertzsprung Russell Diagram, Carolyn Collins Petersen wrote: "One thing to keep in mind is that the H-R diagram is not an evolutionary chart. At its heart, the diagram is simply a chart of stellar characteristics at a given time in their lives (and when we observed them). It can show us what stellar type a star can become, but it doesn't necessarily predict the changes in a star." ( The Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram and the Lives of Stars)

        And this will continue to be important in the next chapters. Stars don't just stay in the same position their entire lives: they change in their color, luminosity, and temperature. In this series, we'll be tracking how stars form, live and die - all dependent on these three factors - and nuclear fusion - again - super important :)

Previous -  Chapter 1: An Introduction

Next -  Chapter 3: Star Nurseries

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Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

Albert Einstein

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