Saturday, May 30, 2009

Resensi Buku : Menjelajah Tata Surya

Format: Paperback, 302 halaman
Penerbit: Kanisius
Pengarang: A. Gunawan Admiranto
Harga : Rp.60.000,00
isbn: 9789792119
Tanggal Publish: 31 Mar 2009

Alam semesta telah sejak lama memukau manusia dengan keindahannya dan juga misteri di dalamnya. Dan perjalanan sejarah manusia membuktikan kalau keingintahuan untuk menyingkap misteri di alam semesta telah membawa manusia dalam perjalanan panjang penelitian dan penjelajahan untuk mengungkap satu demi satu misteri yang menyelimuti alam maha luas.

Dari penglihatan akan gerak benda langit dari Bumi sampai penjelajahan telah dilakukan oleh manusia demi menyingkap misteri itu. Buku karangan Gunawan Admiranto, :Menjelajah Tata Surya”, mencoba membawa kita mengenal ruang lingkup Tata Surya dimulai dari sejarah perkembangan konsep Tata Surya sampai dengan anggota keluarga yang ada di tepian luar Tata Surya.

Perjalanan di tata Surya diawali dari Matahari kemudian ke setiap planet dan diakhiri dengan keberadaan obyek-obyek di tepi luar Tata Surya yang dikenal sebagai obyek Kuiper. Keindahan Tata Surya dipaparkan dengan bahasa yang sederhana untuk dipahami. Satu per satu planet dikupas sampai ke proses yang terjadi di dalamnya. Dan tak lupa definisi planet yang terbaru pun disertakan dengan mengacu pada peristiwa mengapa Pluto bukan planet lagi. Kehadiran klasifikasi baru planet katai juga dijelaskan dengan baik.Buku ini sangat baik untuk para pelajar yang ingin mengenal lebih dekat Tata Surya dan semua yang ada di dalamnya.

Namun bagaimanapun gamblangnya Tata Surya dijelaskan lewat penjelajahan ini, penjelajahan sesungguhnya dari para ilmuwa belumlah berakhir. Masih ada segudang misteri yang masih menanti untuk disingkapkan.

Sumber : langitselatan.com

Buku ini sangat disarankan bagi pecinta astronomi, khususnya para pemula. Saya pernah menggunakan buku ini (edisi lama) dan banyak sekali hal yang dapat dipelajari. Selamat belajar.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Binary Stars

Looking through a telescope at the stars there is very little information we can gain from them. To be sure, we know what color they are and we can see that some are more luminous than others. If we use a spectrograph we can tell what elements they are made up from. From these facts alone, it is difficult to tell just how much mass they contain.

By looking at pairs of stars that orbit one another we can try to answer the question, how much mass do the stars have?

Binary stars can be of two fundamental types:
  • Visual Binaries
  • Optical Doubles

Alberio (Visual Binary)
Visual Binaries are stars that are clearly gravitational associated with one another. They orbit each other around a common center called the barycenter. Visual binaries can be seen optically through a telescope. Only a small portion of binary stars are visual binaries. In order to see a visual binary, the stars must be separated by fairly wide distances, and the orbital periods are usually very long.

Optical Doubles are stars that appear to lie close together, but in fact do not, they only appear to us from our earthly observation to be close together. One of the stars in the pair is actually behind the first star and very far away. The stars of an optical double are not gravitationally bound.

William Herschel began looking for optical doubles in 1782 with the hope that he would find a measurable parallax, by comparing a close star to the more distant star in an optical double.
Herschel did not find any optical binaries, but he did catalog hundreds of visual binaries. In 1804 Herschel had so many measurements of visual binaries that he concluded that a pair of stars known as Castor were orbiting one another. This was an important discovery, because it was the first time observational evidence clearly showed two objects in orbit around each other outside of the influence of our own Sun and Solar System.

Spectroscopic Binary
It is also possible to detect binary stars using a spectroscope. If two stars are orbiting each other they will both produce a spectrum. If the stars are close to being the same brightness it is possible to see different spectral lines from both stars. These stars are of particular interest because it can be used to determine the radial velocity of the orbit of the two stars. Stars appear red shifted when receding away from the earth and blue shifted as they approach. This effect is caused by the Doppler effect which distorts arriving light waves from the stars depending on the direction if their motion. A Spectroscopic binary will alternate between blue and red shifted spectral lines.


Spectroscopic binaries are not detectable if we are seeing the star head on because no Doppler shifts would be present in the spectrum. If the Doppler shifts are present in a single line of the spectrum, we are seeing the light from only one star and we call this a single-line spectroscopic binary. If we can see the light from both stars the Doppler shifts will alternate, split and merge depending on the positions of the two stars in their orbits. This is called a double-line spectroscopic binary.

One very important detail, we do not know how the orbits of the two stars are inclined to earth. This inclination could be any angle, for that bit of information we have to go back to visual methods in order to see the individual stars to determine the inclination of their orbits relative to earth. Even so we can not for certain determine the true inclination of the orbit so our mass calculation is only a lower limit to the masses of the two stars.

Radial velocities permit astronomers to compute the total mass for the two stars, they do not provide the masses for the individual stars and other methods must be used to make that determination

Eclipsing Binary
Another type of binary called the Eclipsing binary can be studied. The information gathered can be used to calculate the individual stellar masses and the diameters of the individual stars. It is rare to find two stars in orbit around one another to have orbital inclination where the stars pass in front of one another to form one point of light as seen from earth.
When the orbital inclination if the eclipsing binary is edge on to earth, the stars will seem to pass in front of one another as they orbit, when the light from the brighter star is eclipsed we will see a deep decline in the amount of light received from the star (6/25/95 in Figure 1) we call this primary minimum, also when the light from the dimmer star is blocked by the brighter the light received declines again, but not so deep and we call this secondary minimum (see 6/9/95 in Figure 1) , otherwise we are able to collect some or all of the light from both stars.


The pattern of these light changes is called a light curve and the data for it gathered by the use of a photometer, making periodic measurements until the eclipsing binaries produce a complete orbital cycle.

We use the mass vs. luminosity relationship to determine what the difference is between the individual masses, then using the mass of the entire system calculated from the radial velocity information, we can determine what the individual masses of the two stars should be. The photometeric data removes some of the uncertainty in regard to the inclination because the shapes of the light curves will be different for a partial eclipse than for a total eclipse.
ALGOL is one of the best known and most studied eclipsing binary stars. ALGOL is normally about 2.3 magnitude, but every 10 hours or so it will dim to about 3.4 magnitude, in other words ALGOL becomes 68% dimmer. I suspect that humanity has known about ALGOL's behavior for quite some time, since the Arabic name of ALGOL means "Demons Head", and ALGOL is associated with the severed head of Medusa. ALGOL is often referred to as the winking eye of the demon.

An eclipsing binary occurs when the orbital plane of the binary system is exactly When one star passes directly in front of the other, as viewed from Earth, we seen an eclipsing binary perpendicular to the plane of the sky.

Dwarf Nova or Recurrent Nova


When an otherwise normal star is associated with a white dwarf companion, a type of binary called a recurrent nova, or dwarf nova may occur. The normal star transfers mass onto an accretion disk which forms around the white dwarf. As material falls onto the accretion disk some of the material may be transferred to the white dwarf by turbulence in the accretion disk, this causes a sudden brightening of the white dwarf as the hydrogen is converted into helium.
If enough material from the accretion disk falls onto the white dwarf the hydrogen gas will become compressed and will not immediately fuse until a substantial increase in temperature occurs; the material will suddenly and violently erupt fusing into a runaway fusion reaction and a violent eruption called a dwarf nova occurs which will blow the accretion disk away, but it will not disturb the normal star.


Mass transfer will quickly resume and a new accretion disk will form. The cycle will continue until enough mass is drawn off the normal star to halt the reaction.

Mass transfer in any type of binary system will affect the evolutionary cycle of the two stars. The normal star will burn its fuel more slowly as mass is removed and the star cools down due to less internal heating from gravitational forces. It will also accelerate the evolution of the star receiving the mass, for the same reasons, more mass, more internal heating and the hastening of the fusion process.

If the material transfers very quickly, the gravitational forces will prevent the hydrogen from fusing by compressing it even further until the hydrogen gas becomes degenerate matter. Degenerate matter does not expand due to the increases in temperature so the mass of the white dwarf increases until it exceeds the Chandrasekhar Limit. When this happens the white dwarf will collapse and a type I supernova will occur which may destroy the companion star and the white dwarf changes into a neutron star or a black hole.

Burster
A similar event can occur when a normal star is associated with a pulsar, the energy given off will be mostly X-rays however, and instead of being called a dwarf nova or recurrent nova, it is called an X-ray burster or more simply a burster. We think that as normal hydrogen falls onto the accretion disk it is quickly converted into helium, when the helium reaches a depth of 1 meter, it will explosively convert helium into carbon producing X-rays. The longer the delay in fusing carbon, the larger and more violent the burst will be. The main difference between the recurrent nova and the burster is that the accretion disk will be hotter in the burster because it is already fusing hydrogen into helium, also the burst will produce mostly X-rays instead of visible light.


When a black hole is associated with a normal star, it will produce the same events as an X-ray burster and the only way to be sure that the companion is a blackhole, is when the mass of the compact object is greater than 3 solar masses. This is far too much mass for the companion to be a neutron star. The gravitational forces would cause the collapse of the star beyond the point of the neutrons to support themselves against the force of gravity and the star would collapse to a zero radius creating a black hole.

Calculation of star's properties with binary stars
Types of Binaries
  • Visual Binary: Can see both stars and follow their orbits over time.
  • Spectroscopic Binary: Cannot separate the two stars, but see their orbit motions as Doppler shifts in their spectral lines.
  • Eclipsing Binary: Can separate the stars, but see the total brightness drop when they periodically eclipse each other.

Visual Binaries --> Two stars orbiting about their center-of-mass.


Center of Mass
Two stars orbit about their center of mass.

  • Measure semi-major axis, a, from projected orbit & the distance.
  • Relative positions about the center give: M1/M2 = a2/a1

Measuring Masses
Newton's Form of Kepler's Third Law:
Procedure:
1. Measure the period, P, by following the orbit.
2. Measure semi-major axis, a, and the Mass Ratio, M1/M2, from the projected orbit on the sky.
3. Solve the equation above and separate Masses.

Problems
We need to follow an orbit long enough to trace it out in detail:
  • This can take decades
  • Need to work out the projection on the sky

Measurements depend on knowing the distance:
  • semi-major axis depends on d
  • derived mass depends on d^3
Small errors add up quickly (10% error in distance translates into a 30% error in the mass!).


Spectroscopic Binaries
Most binaries are too far away to be able to see both stars separately.
But, you can detect their orbital motions by the periodic Doppler shifts of the spectral lines:

• Determine the orbit period & size from the pattern of orbital velocities


Problems:
Cannot see the two stars separately:
  • Semi-major axis must be guessed from the orbit motions.
  • Can't tell how the orbit is tilted on the sky
Everything depends critically on knowing the distance.
Again...

Eclipsing Binaries
Two stars orbiting nearly edge-on to our line-of-sight.
  • See a periodic drop in brightness as one star eclipses the other.
  • Combine with spectra which measure orbital speeds
With the best data, one can find the masses of the stars without having to know the distance!!!


Problems
Eclipsing Binary stars are very rare.
Measurement of the light curves is complicated by details:
  • Partial eclipses yield less accurate numbers.
  • The atmospheres of the stars soften the edges.
  • Close binaries can be tidally distorted.
However, the best masses are from eclipsing binaries.

Source : many different sites

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Soal Latihan : Mengenal Rasi Bintang

Coba kenalilah beberapa rasi bintang yang ada di gambar berikut.


Tips :
  • Klik gambar tersebut untuk melihat ukuran penuhnya.
  • Beberapa rasi tersebut membentuk suatu pola tertentu yang digunakan sebagai penanda musim
Selamat mencoba

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Soal Latihan Astronomi Dasar

Silakan melatih pemahaman Anda tentang Astronomi dari beberapa soal yang saya post-kan.
Trivia Quiz:
Coba Anda sebutkan nama objek yang ada di foto berikut!

Monday, May 4, 2009

Why Are Galaxies Smooth?

NGC 2841, a smooth galaxy. Credit: NASA

Look at the disk of any large spiral galaxy, and outwardly it appears smooth, with stars evenly distributed throughout. But when young stars are forming, they are clustered together in dense clouds of dust and gas. So what happens as the galaxy matures to allow for the smooth distribution seen in galaxies like the Milky Way? Using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, an international team of astronomers has discovered streams of young stars flowing from their natal cocoons in distant galaxies. These distant rivers of stars provide an answer to one of astronomy’s most fundamental puzzles.

Astronomers know that the clusters where stars form begin to disappear when their ages reach several hundred million years. A few mechanisms are thought to explain this: some clusters evaporate when random internal motions kick out stars one by one, and other clusters disperse as a result of collisions among the clouds where they were born. Zooming out to mechanisms operating on larger scales still, shearing motions caused by the galaxy’s rotation around its center disperses the clusters of clusters of young stars.

“Our analysis now answers the grand puzzle. By finding a myriad of streams of young stars all over the disks of galaxies we studied, we see that the mechanism for pulling the clusters of young stars apart is shearing motions of the parent galaxy. These streams are the ‘missing link’ we needed to understand how the disks of galaxies evolve to look the way they do,” said team leader David Block of the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.

Crucial to this discovery was finding a way to image previously hidden young stellar streams in galaxies millions of light-years away. To do this the team used high-resolution infrared observations from the Spitzer.
Using infrared rather than visible light to look at the galaxies allowed the group to pick out stars at just the right age when the stars are just starting to spread out from their clusters.

Credit: NASA/ Spitzer team

“Spitzer observes in the infrared where 100-million-year-old populations of stars dominate the light,” noted co-author Bruce Elmegreen, from IBM’s Research Division in New York. “Younger regions shine more in the visible and ultraviolet parts of the spectrum, and older regions get too faint to see. So we can filter out all the stars we don’t want by taking pictures with an infrared camera.”

Infrared is also important because light in this part of the spectrum can penetrate the dense dust clouds surrounding the clusters where stars form.

“Dust blocks optical starlight very effectively,” said Robert Gehrz of the University of Minnesota, “but infrared light with its longer wavelength goes right around the dust particles blocking our view. This allows the infrared light from young stars to be seen more clearly.”

But even when the images are taken in the infrared, they are still dominated by the light from the smooth older disks of galaxies, not the faint tracks of young dispersing clusters. Special mathematical manipulations were needed to pick out the clusters, whose faint tracks can still be seen precisely because they are not smooth.

Team member Ivanio Puerari of the Instituto Nacional de Astrofisica, Optica y Electronica in Puebla, Mexico used a technique invented by mathematician Jean Baptiste Fourier in the early 1800’s. The technique is effectively a spatial filter that picks out structure on the physical scale where star formation occurs. “The structures cannot be seen on the original Spitzer images with the human eye,” noted Puerari.

“The combination of the Fourier filtering and infrared images highlighted regions of just the right size and the right age. To then unveil so many star streams in the disks of galaxies was unimaginable a year ago. This discovery continues to highlight the enormous potential of the Spitzer Space Telescope to make contributions none of us could have dreamed possible,” commented Giovanni Fazio from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, project leader for the Spitzer Infrared Array Camera team used to take the pictures, and co-author of the discovery.

“Galileo, as both astronomer and mathematician, would have been proud. It is a wonderful interplay between the use of astronomical observations and mathematics and computers, exactly 400 years since Galileo used his telescope to examine our Milky Way galaxy in 1609,” Fazio said

Source: Spitzer
Cited from : Universe Today