AST 2002 Chapter Notes - Chapter 14: Electron Degeneracy Pressure, White Dwarf, Degenerate Matter
Document Summary
14. 1 white dwarfs: stars of different masses leave different types of stellar corpses, low mass stars like the sun leave white dwarfs, high mass stars die in explosion called supernova, leaving behind neutron stars and black holes. Infalling matter therefore forms a whirlpool like disk around the white dwarf. Because the process in which material falls onto another body is called accretion, this rapidly rotating disk is called an accretion disk. Spectra of wd supernova lack hydrogen lines because white dwarfs contain very little hydrogen, while these lines are prominent in spectra of most massive star supernovae. Everest: a neutron star could fit in your hometown, but its gravity would quickly destroy our planet. How were neutron stars discovered: we refer to radio waves that pulse on and off at intervals pulsars, pulsars sat at the centers of two supernova remnants, the vela nebula and the.
