The Brightest Stars Paperback

India

Cornelis de Jager

No part of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram shows a more pronounced diversity of stellar types than the upper part, which contains the most luminous stars. Can one visualize a larger difference than between a luminous, young and extremely hot Of star, and a cool, evolved pulsating giant of the Mira type, or an S-type supergiant, or - again at the other side of the diagram - the compact nucleus of a planetary nebula? But there is order and unity in this apparent disorder! Virtually all types of bright stars are evolutionally related, in one way or the other. Evolution links bright stars. In many cases the evolution is speeded up by, or at least intimately related to various signs of stellar instability. Bright stars lose mass, either continuously or in dramatic sudden events, they vibrate or pulsate - and with these tenuous, gigantic objects this often happens in a most bizarre fashion. Sometimes the evolution goes so fast that fundamental changes are observable in the time span of a human's life - several of such cases have now been identified.

9027711100

9789027711106

English

Springer

30 Nov 1980

470

Cornelis "Kees" de Jager (born 29 April 1921) is a Dutch astronomer who specializes in predicting solar variation to assess the Sun's impact on future climate. He was the General Secretary of the IAU from 1967 to 1973 and former director of the observatory at Utrecht. He is a fellow with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.