Key Terms

By Formative Library

Last updated over 2 years ago

0 Questions

cepheid
a star that belongs to a class of yellow supergiant pulsating stars; these stars vary periodically in brightness, and the relationship between their periods and luminosities is useful in deriving distances to them

light curve
a graph that displays the time variation of the light from a variable or eclipsing binary star or, more generally, from any other object whose radiation output changes with time

luminosity class
a classification of a star according to its luminosity within a given spectral class; our Sun, a G2V star, has luminosity class V, for example

parallax
an apparent displacement of a nearby star that results from the motion of Earth around the Sun

parsec
a unit of distance in astronomy, equal to 3.26 light-years; at a distance of 1 parsec, a star has a parallax of 1 arcsecond

period-luminosity relation
an empirical relation between the periods and luminosities of certain variable stars

pulsating variable star
a variable star that pulsates in size and luminosity

RR Lyrae
one of a class of giant pulsating stars with periods shorter than 1 day, useful for finding distances

Please take the time to check out the source for this material from Openstax if you plan to use this in your lesson plan!: https://openstax.org/books/astronomy/pages/19-key-terms