Nebulae Series #1 Planetary Nebula

The first nebula we are going to investigate is the Planetary Nebula. The name of this nebula come from the early astronomers who first found them. They thought that their appearance closely resembled that of of the discs found on a planet, like the rings of Saturn.

Planetary nebulae are the most densely packed forms of nebulae. They are sometimes created when a white dwarf star forms. The formation energy of the star pushes the gases, mostly ionized hydrogen, out of the star itself. The gas forms what we see and know as the planetary nebula. The light of the star contributes to the glow of these beautiful clouds. Seen in the picture below is the Cat's Eye Nebula. This is one of the best known planetary nebulae.

Note the distinct rings around the center. Those rings are the ones that contributed to the name of this particular kind of nebulae.

Nebulae

Nebulae, in my opinion, are probably the most beautiful beings of the heavens. Just look at them! Below is one of the best known pictures of a nebula. This is the "Pillars of Creation" in the Eagle Nebula.

The term nebula comes from the Latin word for cloud. This is a suitable name for them for sure, as this is essentially what they are. A nebula is a big cloud of dust and ionized gas, usually something like hydrogen or helium. Now, who is this relevant to this blog? The first nebula to be discovered were spotted by the human eye back in the 900's. People thought they were dense clouds of stars. This blog also focuses on the beauty of the night sky, and these are simply beautiful.

Get excited as we begin a series on these gas giants.

November Moon Phases Chart

November is upon us! The nights are getting colder, and this means more vivid, clear stars in the sky. As always, the moon's light will play a factor. Check out the attached link so see the sky chart for this month.

How have you all been liking this blog so far? Please let me know if you have any comments, or questions for things I could cover in future posts. I'd love to answer questions if anyone had them. If not, I will just keep doing what I'm doing. I hope you all are enjoying it!

P.S. be ready for another series about some of the heavenly bodies of the night!

November Moon Phases Chart

Types of Stars Series #5 Supergiants

These stars occupy the class of the biggest stars known to mankind. Supergiants are up to 10 to 70 times the mass of our sun. This class is wide in definition and includes the biggest stars we know of, the Hypergiants

The massive size of the supergiants is their life, and their demise. Due to their size, they burn through hydrogen much more quickly than any other classification of star. This results in them having the shortest lives of any star, reaching only about 30 million years. Compared to the possible 30 trillion year lifespan of the Red Dwarf, this is a significantly younger star.

These stars burn through so much fuel and energy that they become incredibly unstable. Their massive size also leads to a relatively lower surface temperature per square mile than most stars. When so much star and instability begins to die, the massive amount of energy of the supergiant is catastrophic. The supernovae are so intense, the star is completely obliterated, and nothing remains of it.

Below is a picture of a supergiant star as it illuminates a cloud of dust that surrounds it.

Types of Stars Series #4 Neutron Stars

When a star runs out of fuel to burn, it implodes upon itself. This massive implosion of a star is a massive release of energy and gravity is known as a supernova. When a massive star supernovas, it creates a black hole. When a star that is only about 2 times the size of our sun supernovas, it leaves behind a core, and this remaining core is the Neutron Star.

The immense amount of gravity present when a supernova occurs creates this star core that we know as a Neutron Star. The star, as the name implies, is an incredibly dense core of almost entirely neutrons. Because of this, the core is essentially a giant nucleus like that of an atom. It is not held together by fusion like other stars, but solely by gravity. The Neutron Star is essentially a star basely solely on the ease of defining it as such.

Pictured below is the first sighting of a known neutron star. Note the distinct coloration difference from the rest of the stars in the sky.

Types of Stars Series #3 Red Dwarf

For our third star in this series, we are going to talk about the most common star in the Universe as a whole. I am talking about the Red Dwarf star.

Red Dwarfs are about half the mass of the sun, and burn at about half of the temperature. They burn very slowly, but very consistently. They are among the most steady burning stars we know of. Because they burn so lightly and slowly, they have an incredibly long life span. It is so long, in fact, it is the only star that we do not know what happens to over time. Every known Red Dwarf has been nothing but a Red Dwarf.

It is somewhat surprising that we can even see the light of the Red Dwarf. They, on average, burn at 10% of the luminosity of our sun. Almost all of the light from a Red Dwarf is released as infrared light. Due to the difficulty of capturing an image of a red dwarf, I could only find an artist's depiction of a Red Dwarf star.

Types of Stars Series #2 White Dwarf

The White Dwarf is the next classification of stars we will look at. It is one of smallest forms a star can have, and is thought to be the last phase of many star's lives.

The White Dwarf is a remaining core of a star that has burnt off most of its fuel and did not have the heat to reignite the core. The star is largely composed of electron-degenerate matter, which are electrons that cannot lose anymore energy. This leaves the White Dwarf to stay where it is, slowly cooling indefinitely until it becomes a Black Dwarf.

White Dwarfs are fairly common sights in the night sky. They look very similar to the most common star in our solar system, the Neutron Star. White Dwarfs have about the same density of the Sun and the same mass as the Earth.

Attached below is a picture of a White Dwarf. Note how this one has a much more spherical shape than that of the Red Giant. The stars featured below are Sirius A and B as seen from the Hubble Space Telescope.