Scientists created a new conceptual framework to explain how sun-like stars evolve. The new framework includes information on how the stars rotation, emit X-rays and how their stellar winds' intensity changes with time.
Astronomy and physics professor Eric Blackman from the University of Rochester said the new framework can help astronomers in determining a star's age more accurately than the current methods.
The researchers verified the already known and observable data of the sun-like stars' activities with fundamental astrophysics theory. In particular, they analyze the physics at play whenever the star's rotation speeds up and slows down. They also examined how the stars generate a magnetic field and how their x-ray activities take place.
The researchers used the sun as the standardization point. The new framework was able to describe the likely behavior of our own younger Sun as well as its predictable behavior in the future. Blackman said the new framework is a good starting point to predict the activity of stars with similar radius and mass.
"But there is a convergence in the activity of the stars after a certain age, so you could say that our Sun is very typical for stars of its mass, radius, and its age. They get more predictable as they age," added Blackman whose new model reveals that younger Sun-like stars significantly vary in terms of their mass loss and x-ray emission intensities.
While the research is far from predicting the exact age of a star, resting some of the norms can help astronomers predict the age of various stars by studying their x-ray luminosity. Currently, the easiest way of determining a star's age is when a particular star belongs to a group of stars. Scientists rely on mutual properties to help estimate the star's age.
This cluster method is not applicable to solitary "field stars." For these lonely stars, scientists use the gyrochronology method. Their starting point for the estimation is that older stars rotate slower and have less luminous x-rays compared to the younger ones.
The new conceptual framework was detailed in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Photo: Hubble ESA | Flickr
