What are blue straggler stars? How were they first discovered? What do they tell us about star clusters and the evolution of stars? I discuss these questions and more in today’s Ask a Spaceman!
Feb 7th: What are the Blue Stragglers?
Tag: stellar evolution
Feb 21st: All The Uses Of Pulsars (Including Murder)
Pulsars are the rapidly spinning degenerate husks of dead stars, turning hundreds of times a second. But they’re also handy clocks, spinning with such certainty and accuracy that astronomers can use them for all kinds of stuff. We might even use them to navigate the cosmos.
Dec 28th: Where Do Stars Go When They Die?
Stars like our Sun will spend billions of years fusing together hydrogen and pumping out energy. And when the fuel runs out, their death is as interesting as their birth. This week Fraser and Pamela trace out this stellar evolution, and explain what the future holds for stars, large and small
Sep 28th: White and Black Dwarfs
Stars die. At some point in the next few billion years or so our Sun is going to start heating up, using up all the fuel in its core, and then eventually die, becoming a white dwarf. It’ll then slowly cool down to the background temperature of the Universe, becoming a black dwarf. Let’s learn about this fascinating process.
Aug 31st: Clem Unger talks about OSIRIS-REx
This episode features a few points behind how those big diffuse gas clouds collapse into stars.
Aug 9th: Stellar Evolution & Nuclear Fusion
This week’s episode features the 2nd part of our look at how stellar evolution can lead to a supernova explosion,
Jul 27th: Stellar evolution, from Gas to Star
Urban Astronomer presents the first series of where supernova come from. This episode looks at the behaviour of gas molecules, and how this causes vast clouds of hydrogen floating in space to turn into stars.
February 8th: The Supernova That Bounces
Date: February 8, 2010 Title: The Supernova That Bounces Podcaster: Rob Bowman Description: Rob describes the before, during and after of a Type II supernova – also called by a much better name:...