AST201H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Positron, Neutrino

• School: UTSG
• Department: Astronomy & Astrophysics
• Course: AST201H1
• Professor: Michael Reid

Document Summary

Recall: to a good approximation, stars are blackbodies or thermal emitters . Ultraviolet is on the violet side; infrared is on the red side. All the stars" spectrums must have blackbody, thermal shapes. The tip of the curve on the spectrum is the light the star is mainly emitting. It seemed that the sun was made of the same things as earth and was simply on fire. In neutral gases, the electrons are bound to atoms. The phase of matter in the sun is plasma. We know now that the sun is mainly made of hydrogen and is not on fire. A plasma is a gas that is so hot, the electrons break free from the atoms. The sun is in hydrostatic balance or hydrostatic equilibrium between gravity and pressure: in which pressure pushes outward while gravity pulls inward. The sun is in gravitational equilibrium means that there is a balance within the.