Red Giant

1. Red Giant :~: Kristy J :~:

2. How is a Red Giant FormedFrom a Solar Star? • A Red Giant forms from a sun-like star. The star would go through nuclear fusion reactions that consumes almost all the hydrogen in the star’s core and turns it into helium. • The core will collapse till the fusion begins in a hot, gaseous shell around the core. • Energy caused from this fusion will make the star quickly expand to a large scale. The diameter will expand to 10 to 1,000x that of the sun!

3. What chemicals are in a Red Giant? • Inside the gassy shell, the core of the star shrinks and heats up just enough to fuse the helium nuclei together into even heavier ones. Among the most common nuclei are carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. Chemical Contents He (helium) has 2 protons and 2 neutrons. C (carbon) has 6 protons and 6 neutrons. N (nitrogen) has 7 protons and 7 neutrons. O (oxygen) has 8 protons and 8 neutrons. Fe (iron) has 26 protons and 26 neutrons. • Heavier and heavier nuclei are created inside a red giant, the heaviest nearest the middle. At its center are iron nuclei. • These fusions release only a little more energy, so they keep the red giant burning for a little longer. But they do not produce as much energy as the fusion of protons.

4. Carbon Peak ---> The illustration shows an X-ray spectra made by Chandra's Low Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer. There are two individual stars and the V471 Tauri: a red giant star (Beta Ceti, top panel), V471 Tauri, a system comprised of a white dwarf star in a close orbit - one thirtieth of the distance between Mercury and the Sun - with a Sun-like star, and a normal Sun-like star (Epsilon Eridani). The peak in the spectrum - due to carbon ions - is much smaller in the red giant star than in the Sun-like star, whereas the carbon peak in V471 is intermediate between the two. These differences provide important clues to the different evolutionary histories of the stars.

5. In the photo below, a white dwarf is sucking in the gasses of a red giant. One picture is of an artist’s drawing (right) and the other is an x-ray from Chandra (left). • This is a very short video of this event. This is happening in the Mira system. • http://chandra.harvard.edu/resources/animations/mira_small.mov

6. ::Fun Factoids:: • The Sun will run out of fuel and become a red giant in about 4 billion years. • A red giant is over 1,000 times brighter than our sun. • Once a red giant, it will stay a red giant for about 10 million years.  A red giant can form as much as eight tons of iron during its lifetime. • A Red Giant is so big, it could engulf everything in the solar system from the sun to Mars. Mars Sun

7. ~ Credits ~ ~ Photos ~ http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2004/v471/ http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2005/mira/ ~ Info & Facts ~ http://chandra.harvard.edu/edu/formal/stellar_ev/stellar_ev_flash.html http://library.thinkquest.org/J002129F/redgiants/differentstages.htm http://www.historyoftheuniverse.com/starold.html And help from the nicest teacher in this class, Sarah Brumberg!! =)