Study Guide for Quiz 2

There are 25 questions in Part A and 6 in Part B. As usual, you will be asked to answer all in Part A and attempt 1 from Part B. And as usual, Part B calls for answers composed of a few complete sentences.

Part A

What is the relationship between parallax and distance?

What fundamental property of stars do we obtain from parallax measurements?

Would we improve the accuracy of parallax measurements by installing a telescope on another planet?

Can you manipulate the BµL/d2 law?

What are the masses and luminosities of main sequence stars?

What is plotted against what in an H-R diagram?

Where is the main sequence? Red giants and supergiants? White dwarfs?

What is the relationship between surface temperature and OBAFGKM? Do you know the relationship between the luminosity class I-V and the terms dwarf, red giant, and red supergiant?

In what ways is gravity an influence on stellar evolution?

What are the abundant elements in stars?

Which stars become supernovae of type II?

Is gravity a factor determining the shape and evolution of a main sequence star?

What is a brown dwarf?

How do stellar lifetimes depend in stellar masses?

How big are red giants? White dwarfs?

Why are white dwarfs stable?

What is a planetary nebulae?

Part B

What are visual, spectroscopic and eclipsing binaries?

Why are spectroscopic binaries more common than eclipsing binaries?

Why are visual binaries more common than eclipsing binaries among nearby stars?

What is the H-R diagram? What's plotted? Over what range?

How does the diagram differ, if at all, for nearby stars, old and young clusters?

What is the mass-luminosity relation? Does it apply to all stars? If not, why not?

Why is the Sun stable?

Why does nuclear fusion demand high temperatures?

In what forms is nuclear energy released in a stellar core?

Why is the Sun's core very hot?

What are solar neutrinos?

How do massive stars change as they evolve?

Why is a star with an iron core in a fix? What about a star with a silicon core?