The Interstellar Medium Flashcards
What does the interstellar medium consist of?
Gas and dust clouds
What is a dark nebula?
It is dust blocking out light from stars
What is a emission nebula?
Glows due to the stars behind it
What is photo evaporation?
Stars destroy their nebula by burning and heating the gas
What’s the average temp of a dark dust cloud?
Few tens of k
How long is the wavelength when a electron changes rotation?
21cm in the radio wave
What it the temp of the densest clouds and what do they contain?
20K and contain molecules instead of atoms
What is the basic way to explain star formation?
A gas cloud contracts under gravitational forces and the core becalmed hotter until nuclear fusion
What can interfere with with the gravitational collapse?
Rotation and magnitism
What could cause a star to start form?
- death of a nearby star
- supernova
- galaxy collision
- density waves in galactic arms
Why does the luminosity of a protostar go down as it gets hotter?
Because it is getting more compact
How massive must a start be to start nuclear fusion
0.08 the size of our sun
What is the levels of elements in our sun
H-he-be-c
What is a detached binary system
When each star has its own Roche lobe
What is a nova
When a white dwarf accumulates a large amount of matter and burns it very quickly which makes it much brighter