O'Bryne, John;
Space: Guide to Astronomy (The little Guides)
Fog City Press, 1999, 320 pages
ISBN 1875137602
topics: | astronomy | science | children
[Hertzsprung-Russell] HR-diagram - log plot of temp against brightness Main sequence: most stars are in NW diagonal band from 2000K (band M),0.00001 luminosity (sun=1) to 20,000K (band B), 10,000 luminosity. sun at 7000 (band F), 1 is near the middle. Altair 10,000,10 is a bit NW, whereas 61 Cygni SE and Barnards star 3000 (M-band),0.01 further SE Red dwarfs towards bottom right (low luminosity) will have long life ~ 10^10 years (e.g. Proxima Centauri) White dwarf - size of earth but mass of sun; this book-sized vol may have mass of 10K tons. At the bottom (low-luminosity) of HR diagram. Sirius B (band B, 0.005) Red giants : much larger and brighter, above main sequence - mass similar to sun, low surf temp (K,M band) but would envelop all inner planets (upto earth?) Antares, Aldebaran. Supergiants: Betelgeuse - 600mn miles, (upto orbit of Mars). Rigel - 60mn miles - abt 100x size of sun - hot blue supergiant. Milky way - larger than many other galaxies. 2x10^11 stars. disk 15K ly thick, abt 150K ly dia, stars in spiral arms upto 75K ly, then old stars and star clusters. At the center, prob a black hole (Sagittarius A*) emitting radio waves when new mass falls into it.
Part One : A tour of the universe - Stars and Galaxies - Solar System ("nine" planets) Part Two: Observing the sky 65 - Tools and Techniques - Sky and Constellation Charts 95 (bulk of book Part Three: Exploring Space - Breaking away from earth - The outer limits