Astronomy 1021 Lecture Notes - Lecture 30: Trade Union Confederation Of The Americas, Electron Degeneracy Pressure, Observable Universe

• School: Western University
• Department: Astronomy
• Course: Astronomy 1021
• Professor: Robert Cockcroft

Document Summary

Held up by electron degeneracy pressure: stats = typical mass ~ 1msun, typical size 1rearth. Density of typical white dwarf = 3,000,000 g/cm3: hot surface t of 100, 000 k, greater mass smaller size. Need to force electrons even closer together to get the necessary increase in degeneracy pressure: upper limit no white dwarf can weigh more than 1. 4 msun. Electrons would have to travel faster than the speed of light. White dwarf (type ia) supernovae: type ia supernovae. If we can identify a galactic explosion as type ia the(cid:374) (cid:449)e k(cid:374)o(cid:449) it"s lu(cid:373)i(cid:374)osit(cid:455) a(cid:374)d (cid:272)a(cid:374) thus determine its distance. This is known as a standard candle. A known quantity that when spotted can helps us determine the distance to anything in its vicinity. Electrons get pushed into protons, becoming neutrons. Resistance is futile: the resulting collapse for compressed atoms into a ball of pure neutrons is nothing short of catastrophic.