Tag: Blue Straggler

Major Result in Stellar Evolution

ryan3 Comments
Nebula. Collapse. Protostar. Main Sequence. Red Giant. Planetary Nebula. White Dwarf.  This is the cycle of life for a star like our Sun.  By observing stars across the galaxy, we see snapshots of different points in a star’s life cycle.  It’s the same with people; If you went for a walk in a city and observed people for a day, you would see every single stage of a person’s life: Infant, child, adolescent, youth, adult, middle aged, senior.  How would you put them in order if you knew nothing about them? With people you might go up and ask them, but with stars we can...

Stars do Collide! And We Saw It!

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When I do Planetarium shows, one of the things I like to talk about during the Milky Way – Andromeda collision that will happen in 70 Mlllion years, is the fact that very few stars will actually hit each other.  Yet we still call it a ‘Galaxy collision.’  One of the questions I always get is “Will the Earth survive this?”  I usually ask the audience. The response is usually a unanimous ‘No way!” And then I tell them how big Galaxies are and they can’t believe how unlikely it is that the solar system will be affected.  Consider the...