What happens when an interstellar cloud fragment shrinks?
What happens when an interstellar cloud fragment shrinks? It first becomes opaque; Density rises; Temperature rises; Pressure rises.
What would happen to a contracting cloud fragment if it were not able to radiate?
What would happen to a contracting cloud fragment if it were not able to radiate away its thermal energy? It would continue contracting, but its temperature would not change.
What do you call a fragment of interstellar gas cloud?
Protostars: Once a clump has broken free from the other parts of the cloud core, it has its own unique gravity and identity and we call it a protostar. As the protostar forms, loose gas falls into its center.
Why do cloud fragments heat up as they contract due to gravity?
The heat generated as the clouds contract due to gravity is lost as photons. The photons are generated by the molecules' rotational and vibrational energy levels, which are excited by collisions between molecules.
How did the interstellar cloud collapse?
When the force of gravity pulling in on the cloud is greater than the strength of internal pressure pushing out, the cloud collapses into a protostar.
How do protostars become stars?
If the protostar can reach a temperature of 10 million degrees kelvin, the hydrogen fusion process will start and it will become an actual star.
What would happen to a contracting cloud fragment if it were not able to radiate away its thermal energy quizlet?
What would happen to a contracting cloud fragment if it were not able to radiate away its thermal energy? – Its internal pressure would increase, which fights gravity because pressure pushes it out.
What slows down the contraction of a star forming cloud when it makes a protostar?
Conclusion: Hence, trapping of thermal energy inside the protostar slows down the contraction of a star-forming cloud when it makes a protostar.
What happens when a molecular cloud fragments?
The cloud fragment has some overall rotation when it fragments from the Giant Molecular Cloud. As the fragment contracts, it spins faster and faster as the size decreases. This is similar to what you see when a skater speeds up as she brings in her arms as she spins. The spinning fragment is called a protostellar disk.
Which factor resists the contraction of a cloud of interstellar matter?
The gravitational force. Which factor resists the contraction of a cloud of interstellar matter? (Thermal energy.
What is Jeans mass?
The Jeans mass is the critical mass above which gravity dominates. For perturbations below the Jeans mass, pressure forces dominate, and so the perturbation will re-expand when being compresses.
Is interstellar cloud and nebula the same thing?
molecular cloud, also called dark nebula, interstellar clump or cloud that is opaque because of its internal dust grains. The form of such dark clouds is very irregular: they have no clearly defined outer boundaries and sometimes take on convoluted serpentine shapes because of turbulence.
What is red giant phase?
A red giant is a dying star in the final stages of stellar evolution. In about five billion years, our own sun will turn into a red giant, expand and engulf the inner planets — possibly even Earth. What does the future hold for the light of our solar system and others like it?
What is T Tauri stage?
T Tauri stars therefore represent an intermediate stage between real protostars (e.g. YY Orionis stars) and low-mass main sequence (hydrogen burning) stars like the Sun. The nearest T Tauri stars to us are in the Taurus and ρ-Ophiuchus molecular clouds, both about 400 light years away.
Which of the following must be occurring in order for a molecular cloud to collapse and form stars?
Which of the following must be occurring in order for a molecular cloud to collapse and form stars? The buildup of thermal energy in a collapsing gas cloud leads to thermal pressure that can halt the gravitational collapse.
What slows down the contraction of a cloud into a star-forming a protostar?
The temperature in the core of the protostar is hot enough that the thermal pressure becomes strong enough to slow the collapse down to a much slower contraction.
Why did the interstellar gas and dust collapse?
Stars form from an accumulation of gas and dust, which collapses due to gravity and starts to form stars. The process of star formation takes around a million years from the time the initial gas cloud starts to collapse until the star is created and shines like the Sun.
Under what conditions might interstellar gas clouds collapse to form stars?
Summary: Stars form in cold, dense regions of space called molecular clouds. When the force of gravity pulling in on the cloud is greater than the strength of internal pressure pushing out, the cloud collapses into a protostar.
When the fragments of clouds contract a stellar core known as is formed?
A protostar is a stellar core formed when the fragments of a collapsed molecular cloud contract. A main sequence star is formed when gravitational equilibrium is reached during the hydrogen fusion in a protostar.
What forces are responsible for the collapse of an interstellar cloud?
The law of universal gravitation says that all matter attracts all other matter, and Newton recognized a major consequence of that law: clouds of gas will tend to fragment and collapse as a result of their own gravity. This is the basic mechanism responsible for the formation of new stars from interstellar gas clouds.
What is the virial radius?
The virial radius rvir is conventionally defined as the radius within which the mean density is 200 times the background density. Matter accretion is in general quite well described within the approximation of the Spherical Collapse Model.
What is sound crossing time?
Once the collapse starts, pressure is exerted on the cloud, which sends out sound waves through the cloud. These take time to travel through the cloud and back to re-establish pressure balance This is known as the sound crossing time.
What nebula is Earth in?
The closest known nebula to Earth is called the Helix Nebula.
What happens when a nebula begins to contract?
As the nebula contracts, whatever initial tumbling/rotational motion is increased to conserve angular momentum (just like when a spinning figure skater brings in their arms). The nebula flattens into a disk. Gravitational contraction also causes the pressure to increase which causes the cloud to heat up.
What is a white giant?
n. a star having a diameter of from 10 to 100 times that of the sun, as Arcturus or Aldebaran. (1910–15)
What year will the Sun explode?
Astronomers estimate that the sun has about 7 billion to 8 billion years left before it sputters out and dies.
What does AT Tauri star look like?
T Tauri stars actually look quite similar to main sequence stars. Their surface temperatures are about the same as a star of a similar mass, but they're more luminous because they have a larger diameter. But T Tauri stars get all their energy from the gravitational collapse of the material. They're violent babies.
How does an interstellar cloud collapse to become a star quizlet?
As an interstellar cloud contracts, gravitational instabilities cause it to fragment into smaller pieces. The pieces themselves continue to fall inward and fragment, eventually forming may 10s or 100s of individual stars.
What happens to the cloud of gas as it contracts?
As the cloud gets smaller, the atoms of the gas get closer together and begin to bump into each other more, which heats them up. The cloud keeps contracting and getting hotter, until the pressure from the heat (which pushes the atoms apart) balances the force of gravity (which pulls the atoms together).
Is interstellar a space?
Bottom line: Interstellar space is the space between the stars in a galaxy. It's not “empty,” but, overall, it's as close to an absolute vacuum as you can get. Molecular clouds are places in interstellar space where the material is collected most densely. Within these clouds, new stars and planets are born.