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    Stars of the Neighborhood
    Stars of the Neighborhood
    Stars of the Neighborhood
    Ebook49 pages27 minutes

    Stars of the Neighborhood

    By William Haloupek

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    About this ebook

    (science article)

    As you get to know your stellar neighborhood, you will find some bizarre and fascinating stars, planets and other strange things. Each one has its own personality, and we are starting to learn more about them, individually.
    One of the first things you will notice is that more than two-thirds of the known nearby stars are red dwarfs (not dwarves!). These stars are much smaller, cooler and dimmer than Sol (our Sun). In fact, they are only red hot, which is pretty cool for a star. The color of a star depends mainly on the temperature of its outer layers. Because red dwarfs are so dim, even those nearest to us cannot be seen without a telescope.
    Our neighborhood also includes a few Sol-like stars, some white dwarfs, which are small and hot, and brown dwarfs, small and cold. Brown dwarfs are not really considered stars, since they are not massive enough to sustain fusion of their most abundant element, hydrogen, into helium. There are probably many smaller, dimmer objects, yet to be discovered. We don't always discover the nearest things first.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWilliam Haloupek
    Release dateMay 30, 2013
    ISBN9781301684069
    Stars of the Neighborhood
    Author

    William Haloupek

    William Haloupek Mathematician -- PhD 1992 University of Wisconsin-Madison Astronomy is my hobby. Kind of an obsession at times! Not so much about where to point my telescope, but more learning about exotic places. I started out in Topology and Analysis at Texas Tech, then went to Wisconsin and switched to Applied Math. Started working on a PhD thesis in General Relativity, then changed to Dynamical Systems, and ended up with a PhD in Differentiability Theory. Studied a lot of Classical Physics. I also worked as a radar engineer in the missile defense industry for 10 years. This gave me an appreciation of the "real world." Other hobbies: genealogy, coin collecting, science fiction, philosophy, hiking.

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      Just the right amount of scientific info and catchy narrative .

    Book preview

    Stars of the Neighborhood - William Haloupek

    Stars of the Neighborhood

    by William Haloupek

    "The sky is pocked with stars. What eyes the wise men must have had to see a new one in so many." – William Shakespeare, Henry II

    Copyright 2013 by William Haloupek

    Smashwords Edition, License Notes

    This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

    If you like this ebook, please check out the other works by the same author. Nice comments are very much appreciated!

    https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/haloupek

    Some of these works are also available at other major ebook sellers. Please visit the author’s blog at

    http://haloupek.com

    Note: Smashwords doesn’t do tables, so they have to be made into graphics. These come out small, but barely readable, in the Kindle version. I have posted them on my website, for your convenience.

    As you get to know your stellar neighborhood, you will find some bizarre and fascinating stars, planets and other strange things. Each one has its own personality, and we are starting to learn more about them, individually. This short ebook describes the nearby stars, and a few other objects, which will be among the first things we encounter, when we start to explore interstellar space.

    Contents

    1. The Neighborhood

    2. Star Formation

    3. The Neighbors

    4. Measurements and Models

    5. Conditions for Life

    The cover art is adapted from a NASA image. It is an artist's rendition comparing red dwarf stars, brown dwarfs and gas giant planets.

    Chapter 1. The Neighborhood

    As you get to know your stellar neighborhood, you will find some bizarre and fascinating stars, planets and other strange things. Each one has its own personality, and we are starting to learn more about them, individually.

    One of the first things you will notice is that more than two-thirds of the known nearby stars are red dwarfs (not dwarves!). These stars are much smaller, cooler and dimmer than Sol (our Sun). In fact, they are only red hot, which is pretty cool for a star. The color of a star depends mainly on the temperature of its outer layers. Because red dwarfs are so dim, even those nearest to us cannot be seen without a telescope.

    Our neighborhood also includes a few Sol-like stars, some white dwarfs, which are small and hot, and brown dwarfs, small and cold. Brown dwarfs are not really considered stars, since they are not massive enough to sustain fusion of their most abundant element, hydrogen, into helium. There are probably many smaller, dimmer objects, yet to be discovered. We don’t always discover the nearest things first.

    Our knowledge of the stellar neighborhood has increased dramatically since the launch of the WISE (Wide-Field Infrared Survey) mission in 2009. The WISE spacecraft carries an infrared telescope that is ideal for gathering data on faraway galaxies, nearby stars and even asteroids in our solar system. All bodies emit blackbody radiation, which depends on their surface temperatures. This is mostly in

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