Stellar Structure video lectures

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The public video lectures cover just the astronomy content from the Astronomy Notes textbook. The public lectures do not include the material that is for the astronomy class such as how to use the class Canvas, lecture outlines in the Student Guide, exam review documents, etc. Students in the Bakersfield College astronomy classes should use the astronomy class lecture videos posted in the class Canvas to get that class-specific content.

This video set covers the structure of stars and how they produce energy via nuclear fusion. The video lectures are grouped together in the Stellar Structure Public YouTube playlist. Here are the individual videos for stellar structure:

  1. Video 1: (for webpage #2) This video looks at the Sun as our closest example of a star. It covers the interior of the Sun with the core where the energy is generated, the radiative zone, the convection zone, and the photosphere surface, especially the dark spots on the photosphere called sunspots. Then it covers the atmosphere with the chromosphere and corona and solar eruptions called flares and coronal mass ejections. First of a set about Our Sun and Stellar Structure and first lecture for chapter 12 of Astronomy Notes.

  2. Video 2: (for webpages #3, #4, #7, and #8) This video is about how stars are put together and how they shine. It covers the general gas physics involved in figuring out the interior structure of stars. Then it covers nuclear fusion and the use of neutrinos to probe the core conditions. Finally, it describes the reason for the mass-luminosity relation and why there is a cut-off in the masses of stars at the low and high ends. Second of a set about Our Sun and Stellar Structure and second lecture for chapter 12 of Astronomy Notes.

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last updated: June 26, 2022

Is this page a copy of Strobel's Astronomy Notes?

Author of original content: Nick Strobel