Open Questions: Stellar Formation and Evolution

30 Doradus in the Large Magellanic Cloud
See Space Telescope Science Institute page for information.
Star birth image gallery

Introduction

Supernovae

Recommended references: Web sites

Recommended references: Magazine/journal articles

Recommended references: Books

Introduction

Recommended references: Web sites

Site indexes

Open Directory Project: Stellar Evolution: Categorized and annotated links. A version of this list is at Google, with entries sorted in "page rank" order. May also be found at Netscape.
Galaxy: Stars: Categorized site directory. Entries usually include descriptive annotations.
Galaxy: Stellar Phenomena: Categorized site directory. Entries usually include descriptive annotations.

Sites with general resources

The Center for Star Formation Studies: "The Center for Star Formation Studies is a consortium of researchers working together in a coordinated fashion to construct a comprehensive theoretical model of the process of star formation."
X-ray Binary Stars: Part of NASA's Imagine the Universe site. Contains basic information about X-ray binary stars, computer animations, and links to related topics. There is also a more advanced level page on the topic.
Cardiff University Star Formation Group: Research group which is part of the School of Physics and Astronomy at Cardiff University (Wales). Pages describe research interests and include links to related information.

Surveys, overviews, tutorials

Stellar evolution: Article from Wikipedia. See also Star, Star formation.
Frequently Asked Questions in Astronomy: Stars: Questions and answers from the Usenet sci.astro newsgroup.
Ask a High-Energy Astronomer: Physics of Stars: Common questions, with answers, provided by NASA's Ask a High-Energy Astronomer service.
Frequently Asked Questions About Stars: Very good set of questions and answers, by John Simonetti.
How Stars Work: Wery good introduction, with external links, at How Stuff Works, by Craig C. Freudenrich.
Star Formation: A ScienceWeek "symposium" consisting of excerpts and summaries of articles from various sources.
Ready to Explode: Inside Look at an Unstable Star: December 2003 article from Space.com. Discusses the unstable supermassive star Eta Carinae.
Nebulae: Star Birth, Star Death: Good reference article form Space.com.
Stars: Introduction: Basic information about stars. Part of NASA's Imagine the Universe site. There is also a more advanced level page on stars.
White Dwarfs: Introduction: Basic information on white dwarf stars at NASA's Imagine the Universe site. There is also a more advanced level page on the topic.
Stellar Evolution I - Solar Type Stars: Good explanations and external links, part of Gene Smith's Astronomy Tutorial. See also Stellar Evolution II - Massive Stars.
Stellar Evolution and Death: NASA site that provides overview of stellar evolution and the later stages of stellar life - planetary nebulae, supernovae, white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes. Good references for further reading.
StarDate Online: Star Guide: General overview information at the StarDate Online site.
Birth and Death of Stars: A lecture course by James Schombert. Another version is here.
The Structure and Evolution of Stars: A lecture coures by James Imamura.
Stellar Structure and Evolution: A lecture coures by James Imamura.
Star Birth: Outline/notes of a talk by James Imamura.
Solar explosions in 3D: July 2006 article from Physics World, by Edwin Cartlidge. "Huge eruptions on the Sun known as coronal mass ejections can generate violent magnetic storms in the Earth's atmosphere. The author describes a new space mission that will provide unprecedented views of these explosions."
Sunspots reveal their dark side: Summary of February 2003 article from Physics World, by Eric Priest. "New theories have clarified the structure of sunspots but the latest observations have revealed intriguing dark cores in the bright filaments that surround them."
Nuclei prompt stellar rethink: December 2001 article from Physics World, by Alan Shotter. "By measuring a crucial process in nuclear astrophysics with unprecedented precision, physicists have discovered that stars may live longer than had previously been thought."
Baby star blows a bubble: May 2001 news article from PhysicsWeb about a spherical shell of water vapor ejected from a newborn star.
Ulysses probes the solar maximum: September 2000 news article from Physics World, about measurements of the solar wind by the Ulysses space mission.
Solar magnetic field poses problems: Summary of December 1999 article from Physics World, by Steven Tobias and Nigel Weiss, about the problem of understanding the origin of solar magnetic fields.
New light on the Solar corona: August 1999 news article about a suggestion that viscosity of plasma within the solar corona is responsible for its high temperature.
How is a star born?: Scientific American page with answers and external links from several experts.
High velocity clouds make new stars: November 1999 news article about high velocity clouds of galaxtic gas that has low metal content, so that it dilutes metallicity of recently formed stars in the galactic disk.

Recommended references: Magazine/journal articles

The Sun: Living with a Stormy Star
Curt Suplee
National Geographic, July 2004, pp. 2-33: Many dramatic pictures and a little text present the stormy surface of a typical star, the Sun.
[Additional resources]
The Extraordinary Deaths of Ordinary Stars
Bruce Balick; Adam Frank
Scientific American, July 2004
Protostars
Thomas Greene
American Scientist, July-August 2001, pp. 316-325: Protostars -- stellar embryos -- tend to be embedded in thick dust which obscures them from observation in visible light, so more is known of them theoretically than observationally. However, the process of stellar formation is complex and much remains to be explained. The observational problems are being overcome with new instuments for infrared astronomy.
White Dwarf Stars
Steven Kawaler, Michael Dahlstrom
American Scientist, November-December 2000, pp. 498-507: White dwarfs represent the end of a star's life cycle. Though most are unobservable, they may be numerous enough to constitute a large part of the dark matter in galactic halos.
[Abstract and references]
Fountains of Youth: Early Days in the Life of a Star
Thomas P. Ray
Scientific American, August 2000, pp. 42-47: A number of detailed aspects of early stages in the life of a star are still mysterious. One example is the presence of jets of matter being ejected from young stars, when what one expects to find is matter gradually falling into the star.
The Formation of Star Clusters
Bruce Elmegreen, Yuri Efremov
American Scientist, May-June 1998, pp. 264-273: The formation of star clusters from galactic gas clouds is a classic problem of astrophysics. There seem to be several different processes involved which occur under different conditions.
The Story of Starbirth
Robert Naeye
Astronomy, February 1998, pp. 50-55: Although the general outline of how stars develop from clouds of gas and dust is fairly clear, many questions about details of the process remain.
Companions to Young Stars
Alan P. Boss
Scientific American, October 1995, pp. 134-139: Astronomers have been surprised to find that binary systems are as common amoung young stars as older ones. The implication that stars often form in groups of two or even three should affect threories of stellar formation.

Recommended references: Books

James B. Kaler -- The Hundred Greatest Stars
Copernicus Books, 2002: This book should be on the coffee table of anyone interested in astronomy, for its illustrations that accompany each star. But there's a lot of factual information in it as well, illuminating many aspects of stellar structure and evolution, and the profuse variety of forms in which stars exist.
James B. Kaler -- Extreme Stars
Cambridge University Press, 2001: Kaler's idea in this book is to give a feel for the range of forms that stars assume by looking at extremes -- the hottest and coldest, brightest and dimmest, largest and smallest, youngest and oldest. As well as a few stars that are simply strange.
James B. Kaler -- Stars
Scientific American Library, 1998: Kaler presents an introductory book on stellar astronomy for general readers. It includes the history of the subject, and deals with stellar formation and death, classification, and energy production.
R. J. Tayler - The Stars: Their Structure and Evolution
Cambridge University Press, 1994: New edition of a popular text on the subject. A good, brief, relatively unmathematical survey of the whole stellar life cycle.

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