The Vast Stars In The Universe and Some of Their Unique Properties

With the vast cosmos ever so present in the vision of the most complex telescopes available on the Earth, we will always see an abundance of stars. As such there will always be vast differences amongst these stars due to the fact that they are all originally different stars. They each have their primary differences such as size, shape (when observed very closely), mass, color, temperature, and magnetic properties. Consequently these different property stars get assigned different names and types depending on their key features, primarily including temperature, size, and color. For example, “a star’s color depends on its surface temperature” and these colors varying from white, yellow, orange, red, blue, and some other slight variations, along with their different magnitudes (Star Dome).

Another property concerning stars that involves their shape is their “smoothness” as they “are not smooth” and are “covered by granulation pattern(s) associated with the heat transport by convection” and these “convection related surface structures have different size, depth, and temporal variations” (Chiavassa & Bigot, 2015). Evolved stars such as Red Super Giants (RSG) display this underlying granulation pattern, due to their “large diameter, proximity, and high infrared luminosity” along with “effective temperatures lower than ~4000 K” (Chiavassa & Bigot, 2015).

Another distinguishing trait of a star is its mass and the properties that arise due to it. Neutron stars and other superdense objects “often spin fast and sweep a pulse of radio emission across us with each turn” and these become known as pulsars, as “they draw their radio energy from a magnetic braking mechanism that is gradually slowing down their spin” (A Magnetar In Sheep’s Clothing, 2008). Pulsars are unique in the sense that they do “not undergo any significant field decay during their lifetimes” (Konar & Bhattacharya, 1999). A different kind of neutron star, that spins slower and draws emitted energy from a different source, which is the intense magnetic field, became known as a magnetar and are known to be the most magnetic objects in the universe (A Magnetar In Sheep’s Clothing, 2008).

Neutron stars showcase an evolutionary state beyond isolated radio pulsars, and this evolutionary link can be seen as a unified picture of the evolution of their spin and their magnetic field (Konar & Bhattacharya, 1999). Another variation that take part are the High-amplitude delta scuti stars, and they have different rates of pulsating, as there has to be “effective temperatures” for “diffusion and other processes” to cause segregation of chemical elements, thus modifying the “excitation of the pulsations” (Handler , 2009). Overall the stars show these unique properties and consequently some are assigned defining names as a result. These properties haven’t been fully explored yet and are still questioned to this day as we try to learn more about them.

Figure 1: Evolution of the surface inhomogeneities during the stellar evolution (Chiavassa & Bigot, 2015).

Works Cited:

“A Magnetar In Sheep’s Clothing.” Sky & Telescope 115.6 (2008): 14.

Chiavassa, A., and L. Bigot. “Stellar Granulation And Interferometry.” EAS Publications Series 69/70.(2015): 151-175.

Konar, Sushan, and Dipankar Bhattacharya. “Magnetic Field Evolution Of Accreting Neutron Stars — II.” Monthly Notices Of The Royal Astronomical Society 303.3 (1999): 588.

“Star Dome.” Astronomy 44.6 (2016): 38-41.