Activity: Star Formation and Lifetimes Supplies: Pencil. Introduction: Stars beg

Question

Activity: Star Formation and Lifetimes Supplies: Pencil. Introduction: Stars begin life as a cloud of gas and dust. The birth of a star begins when a disturbance, such as the shock wave from a supernova, triggers the cloud of gas and dust to collapse inwards. Qi. Suppose you are observing the region of space where a cloud of gas and dust is beginning to collapse inward to form a protostar. Will the atoms in the collapsing cloud move away from one another, move closer to one another, or stay about the same distance. Q2. What physical interaction, or force, causes the atoms to behave as you described they would in the question above? Q3. Would you expect the temperature at the center of the protostar to increase or decrease with time? Explain your reasoning. Discussion: The inward collapse of material causes the center of the protostars to become very hot and dense. Once the central temperature and density reach critical levels, nuclear fusion begins. During the fusion reaction, hydrogen atoms are combin together to form helium atoms. When this happens, photons of light are emitted. Once the outward pressure created by the energy given off during nuclear fusion balances the inward gravitational collapse of material, a state of hydrostatic equilibrium is reac collapses. When this happens, the protostar becomes a main sequence star. pressure gravity hed, and the star no longer

Explanation / Answer

(1) The atoms in the collapsing cloud will move closer because the cloud is collapsing, that means the distance between the atoms is decreasing.

(2) As the cloud is collapsing and the distance between the atoms is decreasing, the gravitational force on one atom due to the other is increasing (gravitational force is inversely proportional to the square of the distance distance between particles/atoms). As the distance between the atoms is decreasing the gravitational force will be more and this will increase the density of the cloud.

(3) The temperature at the center of the protostar increases with time because the density of core is increases beacuse of the gravitational force. The potential energy converts into the kinetic energy of the atoms in the center of the protostar. Higher kinetic energy of the atoms means higher temperature.

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