Astronomy
1st Edition
ISBN: 9781938168284
Author: Andrew Fraknoi; David Morrison; Sidney C. Wolff
Publisher: OpenStax
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Textbook Question
Chapter 19, Problem 17E
Which of the following can you determine about a star without knowing its distance, and which can you not determine: radial velocity, temperature, apparent brightness, or luminosity? Explain.
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A star has a parallax angle of 0.0270 arcseconds and an apparent magnitude of 4.641. What is the distance to this star? [Answer in parsecs]
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answer, expressed in solar luminosities, tells how many times more luminous this star is than the Sun.
Chapter 19 Solutions
Astronomy
Ch. 19 - Explain how parallax measurements can be used to...Ch. 19 - Suppose you have discovered a new cepheid variable...Ch. 19 - Explain how you would use the spectrum of a star...Ch. 19 - Which method would you use to obtain the distance...Ch. 19 - What are the luminosity class and spectral type of...Ch. 19 - The meter was redefined as a reference to Earth,...Ch. 19 - While a meter is the fundamental unit of length,...Ch. 19 - Most distances in the Galaxy are measured in...Ch. 19 - The AU is defined as the average distance between...Ch. 19 - What would be the advantage of making parallax...
Ch. 19 - Parallaxes are measured in fractions of an...Ch. 19 - For centuries, astronomers wondered whether comets...Ch. 19 - The Sun is much closer to Earth than are the...Ch. 19 - Parallaxes of stars are sometimes measured...Ch. 19 - Estimating the luminosity class of an M star is...Ch. 19 - Figure 19.9 is the light curve for the prototype...Ch. 19 - Which of the following can you determine about a...Ch. 19 - A G2 star has a luminosity 100 times that of the...Ch. 19 - A star has a temperature of 10,000 K and a...Ch. 19 - What is the advantage of measuring a parallax...Ch. 19 - What is the disadvantage of the parallax method,...Ch. 19 - Luhman 16 and WISE 0720 are brown dwarfs, also...Ch. 19 - Most stars close to the Sun are red dwarfs. What...Ch. 19 - Why would it be easier to measure the...Ch. 19 - When Henrietta Leavitt discovered the...Ch. 19 - A radar astronomer who is new at the job claims...Ch. 19 - The New Horizons probe flew past Pluto in July...Ch. 19 - Estimate the maximum and minimum time it takes a...Ch. 19 - The Apollo program (not the lunar missions with...Ch. 19 - In 1974, the Arecibo Radio telescope in Puerto...Ch. 19 - Demonstrate that 1 pc equals 3.091013 k m and that...Ch. 19 - The best parallaxes obtained with Hipparcos have...Ch. 19 - Astronomers are always making comparisons between...Ch. 19 - Gaia will have greatly improved precision over the...Ch. 19 - Using the same techniques as used in Exercise...Ch. 19 - The human eye is capable of an angular resolution...Ch. 19 - How much better is the resolution of the Gaia...Ch. 19 - The most recently discovered system close to Earth...Ch. 19 - What would the parallax of Luhman 16 (see Exercise...Ch. 19 - The New Horizons probe that passed by Pluto during...Ch. 19 - What physical properties are different for an M...
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- An astronomer discovers a type-M star with a large luminosity. How is this possible? What kind of star is it?arrow_forwardThe spectrum of the Sun has hundreds of strong lines of nonionized iron but only a few, very weak lines of helium. A star of spectral type B has very strong lines of helium but very weak iron lines. Do these differences mean that the Sun contains more iron and less helium than the B star? Explain.arrow_forwardDescribe the spectra for a spectroscopic binary for a system comprised of an F-type and L-type star. Assume that the system is too far away to be able to easily observe the L-type star.arrow_forward
- Figure 18.7 shows the velocity of two stars in a spectroscopic binary system. Which star is the most massive? Explain your reasoning. A plot showing how the velocities of the stars change with time is called a radial velocity curve; the curve for the binary system in Figure 18.6 is shown in Figure 18.7. Figure 18.7 Radial Velocities in a Spectroscopic Binary System. These curves plot the radial velocities of two stars in a spectroscopic binary system, showing how the stars alternately approach and recede from Earth. Note that positive velocity means the star is moving away from us relative to the center of mass of the system, which in this case is 40 kilometers per second. Negative velocity means the star is moving toward us relative to the center of mass. The positions on the curve corresponding to the illustrations in Figure 18.6 are marked with the diagram number (14).arrow_forwardWhat are the largest- and smallest-known values of the mass, luminosity, surface temperature, and diameter of stars (roughly)?arrow_forwardLet’s say you’re looking for extrasolar planets. You observe a star that has a spectral shift in the line that is supposed to be at at 656.28011 nm – this star shows this line at 656.28005 nm. What is the radial velocity of star (in m/s) and in what direction in relation to you? a) 27.4 m/s, towards b) 27.4 km/s, away c) -27.4 m/s, toward d) -27.4 km/s, awayarrow_forward
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