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Electromagnetic spectrum spread of star energy

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1. Do all stars emit the same energy throughout the electromagnetic spectrum?

3. An H-R diagram plots luminosities of stars against their temperatures. Why was this such an important discovery? What current research is making use of the H-R diagram information?

6. What determines the life cycle of a star? What changes occur inside and outside a star during its life cycle?

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Solution Summary

The electromagnetic spectrum is examined. The solution determines if all stars emit the same energy throughout. H-R plots are used to determine the luminosities against temperature.

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1.Do all stars emit the same energy throughout the electromagnetic spectrum?
No, stars emit different energy throughout the electromagnetic spectrum. The energy spectrum of a star whose surface temperature T obeys like a blackbody which peaks at T and which follows the Planck distribution. The peaking wavelength can be determined using Wein's displacement law, lambda*T=contant. Stars in different spectral type have different surface temperatures. Hence the maximum energy emitted by different stars will be in different regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. For example consider two stars of temperature 40000K and 3000K. The star with surface temperature 40000K will give the maximum energy in ultraviolet region while star with 3000K will be in infrared region.

3. An H-R diagram plots luminosities of stars against their temperatures. Why was this such an important discovery? What current research is making use of the H-R diagram information?
The original H-R diagram displayed the spectral type of stars on the horizontal axis and the absolute magnitude on the vertical axis. The first quantity (i.e. spectral type) is difficult to determine ...

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