Beyond Our Solar System Flashcards
(27 cards)
What is a galaxy?
Rotating collections of gas, dust, billions of stars, plates and other celestial objects
What is the name of the galaxy we live in? About how many stars are in our galaxy?
Milky Way
About 200 billion stars
What lies at the very center of our galaxy?
supermassive blackhole
Where are black holes typically found?
extremely dense quartets of matter in space
Explain the effect the gravity has in a black hole.
the gravity is so strong that nothing is fast enough to escape it.
What causes a black hole to form?
extremely heavy star collapses under its own weight
What is a star cluster?
a group of stars from the same nebula.
Elliptical Galaxies:
spherical oval shaped
has older stars
half of galaxies are this kind
Spiral Galaxies:
spiral
younger outside
older inside
our galaxy
Lenticular Galaxies:
Central bulge with a flat disk of gas and dust
no spiral arms
lost gas and dust
has older stars
Irregular Galaxies:
irregular shaped
any shape that is not elliptical, spiral, or lenticular
has younger stars
more gas and dust
100 million to 10 billion stars
What are stars made of?
plasma (the 4th state of matter)
what lighting is made out of
Describe what the force of gravity does to a star.
it gives the star’s spherical shape
a star has a very strong force of gravity holding it together
What is nuclear fusion?
the process stars perform in their core
this process involves smaller atoms, like hydrogen, fusing tome heavier atoms, like helium, lithium and carbon.
What is a star system (solar system)? What makes one a binary star system?
stars and everything that orbits is
2 stars make it a binary star system
What is the closest star system to ur solar system? How many stars make it up?
Alpha Centauri
3 stars
Core of Star:
center
area where nuclear fusion occurs
Radiative Zone:
energy radiates out from the core
Convective Zone:
convection occurs
heat gets transported away from the core to the outer layers
Photosphere:
the layer we see
Where are stars born? What happens to gases inside of them?
nebulae
the gases clump together due to gravity
What happens to the gases once they get enough mass?
it becomes a protostar
it will contract and starts to spin
After enough time passes, what happens once the core is hot and dense enough?
it becomes a protostar
What causes stars with a low mass to “die”? What are these stars made of?
they form cold, black stars
they slowly cool down for billions of years
helium
