CLASS NOTES (GEO)- KAFC

Cosmology
Cosmology is the name we give to the study of the origin (the Big Bang) and
evolution of the Universe. It’s looking at the universe on the large scale rather
than the smaller objects within it. To learn more about the different aspects of
cosmology explore the sections below.

Life Cycle of a Star

Stars are formed in clouds of gas and dust, known as nebulae. Nuclear
reactions at the centre (or core) of stars provides enough energy to make them
shine brightly for many years. The exact lifetime of a star depends very much
on its size. Very large, massive stars burn their fuel much faster than smaller
stars and may only last a few hundred thousand years. Smaller stars, however,
will last for several billion years, because they burn their fuel much more
slowly.

Life Cycle of a Star

Credit: NASA

Eventually, however, the hydrogen fuel that powers the nuclear reactions
within stars will begin to run out, and they will enter the final phases of their
lifetime. Over time, they will expand, cool and change colour to become red
giants. The path they follow beyond that depends on the mass of the star.

Small stars, like the Sun, will undergo a relatively peaceful and beautiful death
that sees them pass through a planetary nebula phase to become a white
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dwarf, this eventually cools down over time leaving a brown dwarf. Massive
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stars, on the other hand, will experience a most energetic and violent end,
DELHI: VIJAY NAGAR 9717380832 & OLD RAJENDER NAGAR 9811293743 | JAIPUR: 8290800441
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which will see their remains scattered about the cosmos in a enormous
explosion, called a supernova. Once the dust clears, the only thing remaining
will be a very dense star known as a neutron star, these can often be rapidly
spinning and are known as pulsars. If the star which explodes is especially
large, it can even form a black hole.

Red giant

When hydrogen fuel at the centre of a star is exhausted, nuclear reactions will
start move outwards into its atmosphere and burn the hydrogen that’s in a
shell surrounding the core. As a result, the outside of the star starts to expand
and cool, turning much redder. Over time, the star will change into a red giant
and grow to more than 400 times its original size.

As they expand, red giants engulf some of their close-orbiting planets. In the
Sun's case, this will mean the fiery end of all the inner planets of our Solar
System, which might also include the Earth; but don't worry, this won't happen
for another 5,000,000,000 years.

While the atmosphere of the star grows, its core shrinks due to gravity.
Temperatures and pressures in the middle increase until the conditions are
right for nuclear fusion to start again, but this time using helium as a fuel,
rather than hydrogen.

With the star being powered by helium, its outer layers return to normal for a
while and it starts to shrink, get hotter and turn a little more blue. However,
this stage only lasts for a million years or so, as the helium quickly runs out.
When it does, the core shrinks again and this time the helium starts burn in a
shell around the core and hydrogen may start burning in a shell around that!
The outer layers of the star starts to grow, cool and turn red again as it enters
its second red giant phase.

What happens next depends on the mass of the star. Small sun-like stars move
into a planetary nebula phase, whilst stars greater than about 8 times the
mass of the Sun are likely to end their days as a supernova.

A planetary nebula is an expanding, glowing shell of hot gas (plasma) that is

cast off towards the end of a low-mass star's life. Despite the name, they have
nothing to do with planets, and were so named because early astronomers
thought they looked a bit like planets through a small telescope.

Low-mass stars turn into planetary nebulae towards the end of their red giant
phase. At that point the star becomes highly unstable and starts to pulsate.
The outer layers are ejected by the resulting stellar winds. Planetary nebula are
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relatively short-lived, and last just a few tens of thousands of years.

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DELHI: VIJAY NAGAR 9717380832 & OLD RAJENDER NAGAR 9811293743 | JAIPUR: 8290800441
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As the outer layers drift away from the star, the remaining core shines brightly
and is very hot (100,000°C+) - the core is now a white dwarf star. The
ultraviolet radiation pumped out by the white dwarf causes the ejected outer
layers to glow - the planetary nebula.

Over time, the enriched material from the planetary nebula is scattered into
space and will be used for future generations of stars.

A white dwarf is the remaining compact core of a low-mass star that has come
to the end of its lifetime following a planetary nebula event. They are thought to
make up roughly 6% of all known stars in the Sun's neighbourhood.

White dwarfs are made of highly compressed carbon and oxygen material, and
are so dense that their mass is comparable to that of the Sun, even though
their size is similar to that of the Earth's. A matchbox of white dwarf material
would weigh the same as fifteen elephants.

Newly created white dwarfs have some of the hottest surface temperatures of
any star, at over 100,000°C, but because of their small size, they appear quite
faint from a distance.

As nuclear reactions no longer occur in white dwarfs, they have to rely on their
thermal store of energy for all heat and light. Over time this will gradually
radiate away, allowing them to cool down and change colour. Eventually, they
will disappear from sight to become cold black dwarfs.

A supernova is the spectacular explosion of a high-mass star that has come to

the end of its life. For a brief time, a supernova can shine as brightly as an
entire galaxy, but will fade again over a matter of days.

The explosion occurs when a high-mass star finally runs out of nuclear fuel.
Without any outward pressure to balance the inward force of gravity, the outer
layers of the star collapse onto the core, and are then dramatically expelled in a
nuclear explosion, at a velocity of up to 30,000 km/s. The resulting shock wave
creates an expanding shell of gas and dust called a supernova remnant.

What remains of the star's core becomes a neutron star or a black hole if it is a
very massive star (greater than 40 times the mass of our Sun).

After many millions of years, the material in the supernova remnant will be
scattered into nearby gas clouds and may eventually be used in the birth of a
new star. The majority of elements in the universe were created by nuclear
reactions at the centre of stars. It is safe to say that we are all made from the
stardust of long-dead stars.
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DELHI: VIJAY NAGAR 9717380832 & OLD RAJENDER NAGAR 9811293743 | JAIPUR: 8290800441
BENGALURU: KORMANGALA 7619166663 & CHANDRA LAYOUT 7619136662 | BHOPAL: 7509975361
PATNA: 7463950774 | INDORE: 7314977441 | RANCHI: 9939982007 | [Link]
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A neutron star is the incredibly compact core that remains after a supernova
event.

When a high-mass star comes to the end of its lifetime, its outer layers collapse
onto the core, compressing material to the point where the atoms are smashed
apart, leaving only neutrons - sub-atomic particles with no electric charge.

The outer layers are then ejected in a super-massive explosion, leaving a

rapidly spinning neutron star behind. Some neutron stars have been found to
rotate at several hundred times a second.

A neutron star can weigh the same as one or two Suns and yet will only be
about 20 km across. For comparison, a matchbox of neutron star material
would weigh the same as the country of Wales. A house of it would weigh the
same as the Moon.

A pulsar is a rapidly spinning neutron star that emits repeating pulses of

energy towards Earth. They appear following a supernova, when the highly
compressed core of a recently exploded, massive star is left spinning rapidly
and with a very strong magnetic field.

Pulsars emit beams of electromagnetic radiation (light) that can only be

detected if they are pointing towards Earth. Due to the rotation of the neutron
star, the beams sweep past the Earth at regular intervals, or in pulses, hence
the name. It's a bit like seeing the flashes of light from a lighthouse.

The time separation between the pulses of a pulsar range from between 0.0014
seconds to 8.5 seconds. In other words, these objects are spinning incredibly
fast when compared to the 24 hours it takes the Earth to rotate. In extreme
cases, pulsars rotate at more than 500 times per second, and remember, these
objects are around 30km across and can weigh as much as the Sun.

The first pulsar was observed in 1967 by Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Antony
Hewish but due to the regular nature of the pulses observed, they wondered if
they were a signal from an alien civilisation. This led to the first pulsar being
named LGM-1 (or Little Green Men 1). We now know this is not the case.

Black Holes are very strange objects. They are formed when very massive stars
come to the end of their lifetime, in a supernova event.

Everything that remains of the star is crushed down into an incredibly small,
dense object. Close to the object, gravity is so strong that nothing can get
away, not even light. This means that we cannot see anything within that
region - hence the name black hole.
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DELHI: VIJAY NAGAR 9717380832 & OLD RAJENDER NAGAR 9811293743 | JAIPUR: 8290800441
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PATNA: 7463950774 | INDORE: 7314977441 | RANCHI: 9939982007 | [Link]
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However, it is possible to see the effects of a black hole on the stars and
material around it. Gas, dust and other stars close to a black hole can be
sucked in by gravity - a bit like water going down a plughole. As material swirls
around the black hole it crashes into each other, producing heat and light.
Because this happens away from the black hole, the light can escape so that
we can observe the activity.

Black holes can also distort the image of galaxies they pass in front of. The
gravity of the black hole will bend the light we receive from the distant galaxy
even though it is too far away for any material to be sucked into the black hole.
This is called gravitational lensing (see the simulation on the right).

Once established, black holes can grow by consuming material, stars and even
other black holes around them. Over time, super-massive black holes can
develop, and it is thought that these lurk at the centre of galaxies.

Planet and exo planet

An extra-solar planet, or exoplanet, orbits around a star other than our Sun
i.e. beyond our Solar System.

The very first exoplanet ever discovered was detected in orbit around the pulsar
PSR 1257+12, but the first exoplanet detected around a more normal star was
discovered in 1995, orbiting close to the sun-like star 51 Pegasus. Since then
more than 4000 other planets have been found by astronomers (as of July 2019)
and most appear a similar size to Jupiter. There are numerous ways to detect if
a star has planets orbiting around it, and the different methods all contribute
to the number we know about today.

Quite a lot of the planets found so far have very short orbital periods, and take
less than 10 days to go around their parent stars. The laws of gravity tell us
that planets with shorter orbital periods are closer to their central star,
whereas those with longer periods are further out.

In the Solar System, Mercury, the closest planet, has an 88 day orbital period,
whereas Neptune, the furthest, takes an incredible 165 years to go around the
Sun. As surface temperatures on Mercury are around 400°C, these much
closer planets are expected to be well above 1000°C; far too hot for life as we
know it to exist.

With the high temperatures, it would also be difficult for gas-giant planets to
have formed so close, as all the gases needed to create it would have been
vaporised and blown away by the solar heat. This means that the "hot Jupiters"
we find, which are mainly made of hydrogen and helium, must have formed
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further away from the star where it is cooler and then migrated inward.
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PATNA: 7463950774 | INDORE: 7314977441 | RANCHI: 9939982007 | [Link]
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Whilst the exoplanets detected so far have mostly been large gas-giants, we are
just starting to detect smaller terrestrial planets like Earth and Mars, which no
doubt exist in much larger numbers. Scientists are also trying to develop ways
of checking if life could exist on those planets, such as looking for signs of
oxygen in their atmosphere.

Constellations
The Constellation of Orion

A constellation is a group of stars that can be joined together to form a shape

or picture. Many ancient cultures around the world often created stories about
the shapes they could see in the night sky.

Some well-known constellations contain familiar patterns of bright stars, such

as Orion, which the ancient Greeks saw as a hunter, and Leo, which traces
the outline of a lion.
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DELHI: VIJAY NAGAR 9717380832 & OLD RAJENDER NAGAR 9811293743 | JAIPUR: 8290800441
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PATNA: 7463950774 | INDORE: 7314977441 | RANCHI: 9939982007 | [Link]
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Galaxies

A galaxy is a large collection of stars, dust and gas, and a substance called
dark matter, all held together by gravity.

Galaxies come in all shapes and sizes, which you can explore below in the
classification section. The smallest dwarf galaxies contain just a few million
stars, whereas the largest giants can contain around 1 trillion stars - that's an
incredible 1,000,000,000,000 stars. What's more, there are believed to be
around 100 billion (100,000,000,000) galaxies in the observable Universe.

Quasars

A QUAsi-StellAR radio source (or Quasar) is a very energetic object that looks
like a star, but is actually a very distant galaxy with a very bright galactic core.
They are probably the brightest objects in the universe, and many times
brighter than normal galaxies.
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PATNA: 7463950774 | INDORE: 7314977441 | RANCHI: 9939982007 | [Link]
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Astronomers think that quasars are compact regions surrounding
supermassive black holes found at the centre of galaxies. The vast power
generated by quasars comes from high-energy collisions within the accretion
disks swirling around the black hole.

Chandrasekhar Limit

White dwarf stars are the end products of the stellar evolution of low to
medium mass stars like our Sun. They are extremely dense objects (1 teaspoon
of white dwarf material would weigh several tonnes!) and are supported against
further gravitational collapse by electron degeneracy pressure.

The Chandrasekhar Limit of 1.4 solar masses, is the theoretical maximum

mass a white dwarf star can have and still remain a white dwarf (though this
limit does vary slightly depending on the metallicity). Above this mass, electron
degeneracy pressure is not enough to prevent gravity from collapsing the star
further into a neutron star or black hole.

The limit is named after the Nobel laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar,

who first proposed the idea in 1931.

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DELHI: VIJAY NAGAR 9717380832 & OLD RAJENDER NAGAR 9811293743 | JAIPUR: 8290800441
BENGALURU: KORMANGALA 7619166663 & CHANDRA LAYOUT 7619136662 | BHOPAL: 7509975361
PATNA: 7463950774 | INDORE: 7314977441 | RANCHI: 9939982007 | [Link]