Stellar evolution Definition and 25 Threads

I have a question regarding two specific books on stellar structure. Stellar structure and evolution 2nd Ed by Kippenhahn... and Stellar interiors 2nd Ed by Hansen... Can someone who is familiar with both of them compare their strengths and weaknesses and recommend one of them for serious...

Hi! Please don't spare me any juicy details. I can take it! I'm specifically interested in type II supernovae and their stellar precursors in my following questions. Stars above the mass of 8 times the size of the sun go through successive burning phases in their cores, resulting in a cores of...

Hey everyone, I'm brand new here! I absolutely love Physics, specifically Astrophysics, I'm actually looking to study black holes and stellar evolution. I'm preparing to go to University this fall to get my bachelors in Science with a major in Physics and a minor in either Mathematics or...

Hi, I have an upcoming exam in astrophysics. We have been told to make sure we study all figures and tables, s.t. we are able to explain them. However, I ran into these figures below, in my lecturer's PowerPoint and I do not know where they originate and aren't presented in my book. I'm having...

Hello I have been reading about the s-process and r-process in star evolution. And one thing i briefly saw mentioned was that both processes generally create higher abundances of elements with even number of protons than odd. It however did not explain why there is a slight bias towards even...

<Moderator's note: Moved from a technical forum and thus no template.> Suppose that all stars in this galaxy were born in a single major-merger burst event about 10 Gyr ago. From this original burst, I want to compute the fraction of stellar mass still surviving as stars in the main sequence ...

Can anyone enlighten me as to why the total thermal energy of a star will increase with time if the star has no nuclear energy source?

Just read an article about a discovery of the smallest/least massive star in the Milky Way galaxy. The star has 85 times the mass of Jupiter and is known as EBLM J0555-57Ab located about 600 light-years from Earth. The entire article here -...

Magnetic braking is a theory explains the loss of stellar angular momentum and is used extensively to describe the given rotation stars. However, on a smaller and more directly observable level, when we consider Jupiter's rapid rotation rate of less than ten hours and its accompanying powerful...

hello PF, I want to know more about stellar evolution and about the end of the star's life. I want something that is not very superficial as i get bored when the content is not really deep. Thanks.

At 265 SM, and age 1.7 Million years, at 163,000 Light Years Away in the R136 cluster, is R136a. But, it shouldn't be alive now. It should have exploded given the model of Solar Mass Evolution at 200,000-375,000 Years old of age. It's in it's Wolf-Rayet phrase, but it still shouldn't be alive...

My apologies for starting a thread on a seemingly easy and searchable topic. But, alas, I've searched here, Amazon, google, Goodreads etc and wanted to get some recommendations. Specifically book suggestions on The Sun and / or Stellar evolution. I've ran across several intriguing textbooks...

Well, this topic is driving me crazy so any answers or replies should preferably be detailed and in an easy way.. My question is i want a sum up of the evolution of a low mass star... I will give my answer and tell me where are the dropouts.. Let me begin,With a protostar accreting hydrogen in...

Hi there, I'm new to the forums and I came here for a specific purpose. I am not in school at the moment, but rather I am writing a science fiction novel and want to make sure that my science is as close to accurate as possible (though I understand that this may be impossible in some respects)...

Hi, Just revising for my Advanced Stellar Evolution exam, was wondering if anyone knew if there was a good detailed Colour Magnitude (HR) diagram on the internet which went into some detail of different Stellar Mass' and Chemical Compasitions (so more like a poster than a HR diagram)! If...

Is it generally true that the further away a galaxy is (and more red-shifted), the more it tends to contain lower metal content stars? I'd always assumed this was one of the main bits of evidence for the Big Bang, but I've also read that the globular clusters that surround (and are...

What are the best books (upper undergraduate / beginning graduate) for stellar structure, stellar evolution, compact stars, etc. ?

why is there very rapid mass loss in the superwind phase. my notes simply say "because the envelope attains positive binding energy". Firstly, how can binding energy be positive by definition?! Secondly, I am not entirely sure what the lecturer is talking about? what makes the envelope...

why after hydrogen exhaustion (of low mass stars) does the the core become isothermal. (according to my notes) I mean, after exhaustion, its all helium, and it keeps on contracting right? So by the virial therem it must heat up (so by definition, it is NOT isothermal)! Indeed it must do so...

stellar evolution pathways...? I find this especially interesting since the trajectories of stars on the HR diagram are more or less based on this assumption. But obviously, small perturbations can lead to major changes in the long-run. But it seems that most of those changes involve only...

Hello I am a student in high school and my physics teacher is a complete idiot. He just gave us a project to draw the life cycle of stars without even teaching the class. I am completely lost. Can someone help me draw the life cycle of stars that includes small: G-yellow K-orange...

I am new to astronomy, though really interested in it Just read up on stellar evolution from multiple sources, but have some questions about it Let me summarize the theory of stellar evolution 1. gas clouds collapse due to multiple mechanisms, e.g. shock wave, collision of clouds... 2. the...

Hey, would anyone be able to tell me quality websites/ or help to answer the following questions: 1. What is a star? 2. How Astronomers can tell the difference between different stellar objects? 3. What powers a star? 4. The evelotionary path of a star and it's different stages. 5. Why...

Stellar evolution modeling is a science that, to put it charitably, plods along. Here is one of the more interesting papers I've seen in awhile: http://www.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0601502 Stellar evolution of massive stars at very low metallicities

Seems that not much gets posted here lately. The link is to a simple chart that answers (in advance) some of the questions asked here. Note in particular the abundance label at the bottom of each class, with M Class stars being 80% ! See how few of the biggies (Class O, B and A) are either...