Variable Stars and the HR Diagram

Stellar Death Low Mass Stars

Previous lessons have outlined stellar evolution to Helium fusion.The lifecycle after Helium fusion depends on a star’s mass. The image to the right shows the varying layers of fusion that a star can attain depending on its mass. NOTE: Many of today’s images will come...

The Main Sequence

The HR Diagram is used to provide a categorization of stars based upon their temperature and luminosity. When plotted, very distinct regions become apparent. In the series on the HR Diagram, this video will focus on the Main Sequence. This is where stars will spend...

HR Diagram Overview

There are so many stars in the Universe. How do we categorize them? How do we classify them? Do they even classify? This lesson assumes some familiarity with Wien’s Law, Stefan-Boltzmann, and stellar magnitudes. We'll cover: Major categories of stars Lifetimes of...

Stellar Death – High Mass Stars

Previous lessons have outlined stellar evolution to Helium fusion. The lifecycle after Helium fusion depends on a star’s mass. The image to the right shows the varying layers of fusion that a star can attain depending on its mass.

Stellar Life after the Main Sequence

This lesson will cover an overview of the stellar life cycle after a star has left the Main Sequence. This is important to understand as each type of variable star is particular to a specific point in stellar evolution. The path a star will take from this point is...

Stellar Life Interstellar Medium to the Main Sequence

This lesson will cover an overview of the stellar life cycle from the Interstellar Medium (ISM) to Zero Age Main Sequence (ZAMS). It’s important to understand the stellar life cycle for any astronomical research project. For example, a T Tauri Variable Star is...

HR Diagram and Star Clusters

Result of a parent molecular gas cloud (Stellar Birthplace) collapsing into a group of stars found in the same region of space. Due to this common origin, clusters are almost ideal laboratories for the study of stellar life sequences. Being born in of the same...