Astronomy, Homework 3

Homework 3: Astronomy

Instructions: Give short, concise but clear answers, not exceeding a few lines. How-
ever, clearly state your arguments and show your working. Also, use of diagrams is highly
recommended in this homework.
Please work in groups of three and submit only one copy per group. Please submit your
solutions through LMS dropbox.

1. Stellar Parallax: Recall the angle-distance formula. Suppose that a star changes
its position on the celestial sphere by an angle of 0.03 arc seconds of a degree from
January 1 to July 1. What is the distance of this star from Earth? Express your
answer parsecs, Light years and Kilometers.

Solution Notes: Recall that the angle distance formula gives us a way to measure the
distance of a nearby star by measuring its parallax i.e., how much it’s angular separa-
tion changes with respect to the distant stars on the celestial sphere from January to
July. The formula is , using arc length formula:

57.3 × Lengthbaseline
D=
θ
where D is the distance to the start, length of baseline is equal to the diameter of the
Earth’s orbit around the sun and θ is the angle shift in star’s position . Using this
formula, we can find the distance to the star.

However, we have also defined a unit of distance, called 1 parsec, in such a way that
a star at this distance produces a shift of 2 arcsec. ( A shift of 2 arcsec is called a
parallax of 1 - Parallax is defined to be half the observed shift). Therefore, we can
also write the following formula:

1
D( in parsecs) = ,
parallax
where parallax is defined as half the shift in its angle.

Therefore, for a shift of 0.03 arcsec, the distance in parsecs is:

1
Dparsec = = 66.66parsecs
0.015

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Now, it so happens, ( and we derived it in class) that 1parsec = 3.26light years.

One could directly use the distance angle formula here and get the same result, as we
did in class.

2. Distance Angle Formula, Again: Suppose you are standing on the roof of a house. A
tree in the street is seen to be directly in front of a far away electric pole from the
point where you are standing. You step to the side, perpendicular to the direction
of the tree, by 5 feet. Now the tree is seen not to be in front of the pole but rather
separated by an angle of 5 degrees. How far is the tree?

3. Give an example of something which possesses energy. Also speculate what kind of
energy it is having. Explain how this energy can be used to do some kind of useful
work by converting it into a different kind of energy, say kinetic energy or energy in
light.

4. Explain how would you measure the mass of a binary star system i.e., two stars rotating
around each other.

Solution Notes: Notice that the Newton’s version of third law tells us the constant of
proportionality that appears in the relation between P 2 and a3 exactly. It depends on
the masses of two objects that are rotating around each other. By observing the period
and the separation between the two stars, one could find the sum of their masses.

Also notice that if one of the object is much smalled in mass, say Mars, compared to
the sun, one can neglect the mass of the mars in this formula because the sum of the
two masses would still be very close to the mass of the sun. Then observing the orbit
size of Mars i.e., a, the semi major axis, and the time period of Mars T , we can use
this formula to measure the mass of the sun.

5. Suppose one night when you were sleeping in your bed, some extra terrestrial come to
your room and take you away to their space ship which is hovering at a height of 1000
km above earth. Where do you have more gravitational potential energy with respect
to the earth? In your bed or at the alien space craft?

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6. An engineer has come up with a brilliant idea. They will use water falling from a
dam to generate electricity. This is old story; their idea is that they will employ some
efficient pumps and use part of this electricity to pump the water back to the top
of the dam to start the cycle again. This way, they don’t have to wait for the snow
melting or rain for the dam to fill. Falling water will carefully be saved and all the
time pumped back to top. Will you invest in this venture? Explain your choice.

Solution Notes: Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Even in the best case
scenario, when no losses are involved and assuming 100% efficiency, the energy required
to pump the water back up would be exactly equal to the energy that will be gained
when water falls down the dam. Therefore, there is no point in doing this effort at all
as you did not gain any energy; you just got back what you used - so why not just use
your initial store.

7. Suppose if Earth’s mass was twice its current value but it were at the same distance
from the Sun as it is now. How long would have taken it to complete one orbit around
the sun in that case? i.e., how long the year would be in the case?

8. Suppose Venus has big masses of soft molten metal inside it. Something cracks and
they collapse, and Venus’s surface falls onto them with this collapse. As a result,
radius of Venus is reduced by 20%. Will the year length on Venus change? If yes, will
it get longer or shorter? Will the day length on Venus change? If yes, will the day get
longer or shorter? (Recall conservation of angular momentum).

9. To what part of electromagnetic spectrum the following electromagnetic waves belong?

Also,arrange these waves according to the energy of their photons.

Solution Notes: Although electromagnetic wave of any wavelength can have any en-
ergy, the energy of the individual particles of the wave i.e., of the photons, depends
on their frequency. The energy of the photon increases linearly with the frequency of
the wave with higher frequency photons having more energy.

10. Electromagnetic waves from a fire pit or an electric heater can warm your body quite
effectively. You can absorb lots of energy from such a source over many hours during a

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night keeping your skin temperature high and comfortable. On the other hand an X-
ray exposure at a doctor’s office is not even felt and does not raise your temperature.
The energy absorbed is minimal. Still, the X-rays are considered highly dangerous
while the EM waves coming from a heater are not. Explain why is that.

Solution Notes: The electromagnetic waves from the fire pit have lower frequency.
Although there is a lot of energy being transferred, and that is a good thing, as your
body can absorb this energy to raise its temperature, the energy of an individual
photon in these waves is small. This is because these waves are in the infra red and
visible region which have small frequency and therefore their photons have less energy.
Each individual kick that your body gets from these photons is small. The total energy
absorbed is dispersed in the body over the time as a rise in temperature.

On the other hand, for X-rays, they give you a very short exposure. That means that
energy transferred to your body is very very low. Therefore, it is not enough to raise
the temperature of your body which has trillions of atoms.

However, each individual photon of this low doze of x -ray still has very high energy
compared to the photons of the infrared from fire. There are very few photons absorbed
but each of them has enough kick in them to destroy the DNA in your indivudal cells.
Therefore, X-rays are dangeroud despite carrying less energy overall.

11. Two stars differ by an apparent magnitude of 5. By what factor does the apparent
brightness of one differs from the other?

12. Star A is 100 times more luminous than star B. Star A is 100 times nearer to us than
star B. How Do the apparent brightness of the two stars compare?

13. The temperature of gas filled in box A is more than the temperature of gas filled in
box B. Molecules of which gas have more average kinetic energy?

Solution Notes: Temperature is directly a measure of average kinetic energy of

14. A star is found to emit maximum power at the wavelength 0.34µm (micro meter).
What is the surface temperature of this star?

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Solution Notes: Wien’s law tells us what is the temperature of a hot body that emits
thermal radiation by observing the wavelength of peak energy. There is energy being
radiated in all frequencies but one wavelength has the peak power. This is seen
in Planck thermal radiation curve. One can simply use this simple law to tell the
temperature of any hot body including the surfaces of the stars. Just remember that
this form is used with wavelength being input in the formula in µm i.e., micro meters.

15. Put the following stars into a sequence of temperature from cold to hot: F3, F8, O2,
G6, M2, K9, B1, G3, M3

Solution Notes: We have the spectral sequence of stars OBAFGKM with O being the
hottest and M being the coldest. Furthermore, each letter is divided into ten parts of
increasing temperature. This is just use of this.

16. An Astronomer claims that he has found sodium in a certain star. Explain how he
might have discovered it?

17. The Light in sun is created in the interior of the sun which is extremely hot and dense
while the outer layers are relatively colder. What kind of spectrum it should produce?
Helium in the sun causes absorption at certain frequencies, in which regions of sun do
you think this mostly occurs? ( Recall Krichoff’s Laws).

Solution Notes: This is just an application of Krichoff’s laws. ).

18. The energy difference between the first and second energy level in hydrogen is greater
than that of helium? An electron drops from the second level to the first in both of the
atoms. Whose wavelength would be longer? From helium or from hydrogen? Whose
frequency would be higher?

19. The three main lines belonging to the spectrum of hydrogen in the visible region are
410 nm , 434 nm , 656 nm. Suppose you observe the spectrum of a star. Apart from
some junk you see the following absorption lines 414 nm , 438 nm , 660 nm What do
you conclude about the star?

20. What kind of star are the followings: O2 V,G1 I,M3 III, B5wd?

Solution Notes: This is combined use of spectral classes and luminosity classes of stars.
This is how the type of a star is reported and reading it off, one can easily tell where

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on the HR diagram a star is found. OBA etc will be hot and if they have a wd in front,
they will also be dwarf, so B5wd is a white dwarf. White standing for a reminder that
they are hot. On the other hand if you have a star with luminosity class V, it is on
main sequence. If the luminosity class is something like I , II or even III, it is a giant
( Higher the luminosity class, higher the luminosity). If it also happens to be K or M
in its spectral class, it is a cold giant so we call it a Red Giant.

21. Given two stars with equal surface areas i.e. radius , if one has a temperature of
12000 degrees and the other has a temperature of 4000 degrees, the luminosity of the
12000 degree star is greater than the 4000 degree star. How do the luminosity of two
stars compare? Whose luminosity will be bigger and by what factor? Recall Stefan
Boltzman law.

22. Star A has a surface temperature of 10000 degrees. Star B has a surface temperature
of 5000 degrees. Star B is 4 times more luminous than star A. How do the radi of the
two stars compare?

23. What is an H-R diagram and what patterns are found in H-R diagram. Use diagram
to illustrate your answer

24. A red giant is giant in what sense? Why is it called red? A white dwarf is dwarf in
what sense? Why is it called white?

25. Explain why when a cloud of gas held together by gravity radiates thermal radiation,
it contracts and its temperature rises as well. Do you have to provide energy from
outside to raise its temperature?