Chapter 8 glossary terms

Radiation consisiting of electromagnetic waves that travel at the speed of light(such as visable light, radio waves, and X rays)

A telescope that uses a lens to collect the light from an object

A telescope that uses a mirror to collect the light from an object

An artifical (human made) object or vehicle that orbits earth, the moon or other celestial objects; also, a celestial body of larger size (for example, the moon is earths natural satellite)

Observatories that orbir another other celestial objects

The theory that describes how stars and planets form form contracting, spinning disks of gas and dust

A celestial body made of hot gases, mainly hydrogen and some helium

A vast cloud of gas and dust which may be the birthplace of stars and planets

A hot condensed object in the centre of a nebula

The process of energy production in which hydrogen nuclei combine to form helium

The surface layer of the sun

The layer of strong magnetic fields on the photosphere

A stream of fast moving charged particles ejected by the sun into the solar system

When the charged particle from the sun colide with the Earth's upper atmosphere, spectacular auroras can result (Northern lights)

The sun is needed for all life on earth, the suns energy also drives most processes on earth that suport our daily activities like finding sufficent food and providing for ourselves with adequate shelter

A star's total energy output per second; its power in joules per second (J/s)

The magnitude of a star that we would observe if the star was 32.6 light years away 

An optical instrument that produces a spectrum from a narrow beam of light, and usually projects the spectrum onto a photo graphic plate or a digital detector

Certain specific wavelines within a spectrum characterized by lines; spectral lines identify specific chemical elements

A graph that compares the properties of stars

A narrow band of stars on the H-R diagram that runs diagonally from the upper left (bright, hot stars) to the lower right (dim, cool stars); about 90 percent of stars, including the sun are in the main sequence

A small dim hot star

A massive explosion in which the entire outer portion of a star is blown off

A star so dence that only neutrons can exist in its core

Low mass stars evolve as they lose there significant mass they evaporate becoming dark embers. which will take billions of years to ocure

These stars consume their hydrogen faster than low-mass stars and as the core contracts the temperature increases and the core begins to expand. And as the layers expand it is called a red giant, eventually the sun will become a white dwarf in about 5 billion years

These stars consume their fuel even faster than the intermidiate-mass stars, these stars die more quickley and more violently. When the core heats up to much higher temperature. Heavier elements formed by fusion make the star expand to a superfiant, iron will eventually form in the core and since iron cannot release energy through fusion the star collapses violently forming a supernova

The remnant of a supernova explosion with a gravitational field so strong that nothing can escape its pull