Transcript The Rigel Star - Emmi

The Star Rigel
Stellar Research Project
Due 11/23/09
Mr. Emmi’s 1st Hour Science
Anne Wampler
Characteristics
• Size:
– About 78 solar radii
– About 54,249,000 kilometers
– It is a supergiant.
• Temperature:
– About twice the temperature of the sun
– 11,500 kelvin (11226.85°C) at its surface
• Color:
– Blue-white
• Distance from the Sun:
– about 870 light-years
Rigel
H-R Diagram
Rigel is a blue-white
supergiant.
Constellation
• Rigel is the ankle in the constellation
Orion, a hunter from the Greek myths.
• Orion was a great hunter and honest
man. Because of this, he became the
companion of Artemis, goddess of the
hunt. This made Artemis’ twin, Apollo,
jealous and he sent an enormous
scorpion to sting Orion. Artemis was
angry about the death of her companion,
but forgave Apollo when he helped her
hang his image in the sky so that he
wouldn’t be forgotten. The Greeks said
that this is why the constellation of Orion
is visible in the winter, but wavers and
vanishes when Scorpio appears in the
summer.
Life Cycle
• Birth:
– Rigel was born as a high-mass protostar about 10 million years ago.
• Current Age:
– Rigel is currently 10 million years old.
– This is only about 1/45 of the Sun’s 4.5 billion years of age.
– It is a blue-white supergiant.
• Future:
– Rigel will eventually cool to be a red supergiant, then explode into a
supernova.
– Although it is large, Rigel is not massive enough to create a black hole.
– Rigel will probably become a neutron star or a pulsar within the next
couple million years
Glossary
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Kelvin: a unit of temperature that equals about -272.15° Celsius.
Solar Radii: a unit of measure that is equal to the current radius of the Sun; about 695,500
kilometers.
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Light-year: a unit of measure equal to the distance light can travel in one year; about
9,460,730,472,600 kilometers.
H-R Diagram: a diagram used to classify stars and understand how they change over time. It
shows the relationship between the temperature and the absolute brightness of a star.
Supergiant: an extremely bright star whose diameter is more than 100 times that of the
sun.
Protostar: a contracting cloud of gas and dust with enough mass to become a star.
Supernova: the really bright explosion of a dying supergiant star.
Black Hole: an object whose gravity is so powerful that nothing, not even light, can escape.
Neutron Star: the small, dense remains of a supergiant star after a supernova.
Pulsar: a neutron star that spins very fast and releases radio waves.
Back to Characteristics
Back to H-R Diagram
Back to Life Cycle
Bibliography
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"Rigel." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 22 Nov.
2009 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/503427/Rigel>.
Green, Paul J. "Star." World Book Online Reference Center. 2005. World Book, Inc.
http://www.worldbookonline.com/wb/Article?id=ar52954.
Sessions, Larry. "Rigel: Orion’s Brightest Star." EarthSky. 2009.
http://www.earthsky.org/tonightpost/brightest-stars/blue-white-rigel-is-orionsbrightest-star.
Kahler, Jim. "Rigel." STARS. 1998. University of Illinois.
http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/sow/Rigel.html.
D’aulaire, Ingri & Edgar. D’auliares’ Book of Greek Myths. United States: Doubleday,
1962.
Pasachoff, Jay M. Prentice Hall Science Explorer: Astronomy. Upper Saddle River,
New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2005.