Feb 2 1975
From The Space Library
High-speed computer techniques were producing profiles of giant red stars, in a NASA-sponsored research project conducted by California Institute of Technology scientist Dr. Juliana Christy Sackmann at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Analyzing high-resolution infrared data on successive star flashes representing from a fraction of a year to a million years in the evolution of a red giant, Dr. Christy-Sackmann found that the violent combustion of helium in the heart of the stars, releasing heat up to 260 million °C, produced a predominance of carbon. She stressed the convective role of helium and hydrogen in fueling the stellar fires: A convective tongue of helium was driven through layers of burning shells toward the outer envelope of hydrogen. Hydrogen might also drop down to overlap, giving extra energy to an old star. The release of energy from the interior of the stars varied, apparently because of convective zones that seemed to come and go. Although each flash produced extreme interior disruption, surface changes in most cases were minor.
The length of time required for computation had prevented previous investigators from following and analyzing more than a few of the hundreds of successive flashes occurring in a star; using the new computer technique, Dr. Christy-Sackmann planned to analyze hundreds. (JPL Release, 2 Feb 75)
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