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Book by David Michalets
5 Stars
This is section 5 of 18.
The web page series for Distant Spectral Shifts is based on my book Cosmology Crisis Cleared.
The internal mechanism driving a star's thermal radiation is not relevant to this book. However, I must mention the current gaseous Sun model is being questioned. Later, there are assumptions based on the old model of a star; these must be questioned.
A new solar model as building blocks of LMH was also explained in my book Cosmology Transition.
Briefly, Dr. Pierre-Marie Robitaille developed a solar model based on condensed matter in the form of liquid metallic hydrogen. This is the term for a lattice of protons maintained by loose electrons. This lattice is electrically conductive and cools by emitting thermal radiation. This model explains all solar and stellar observations. He has presented this model in many venues including his YouTube channel, Sky Scholar which hosts many videos. [References:
Forty Lines of Evidence for Condensed Matter - The Sun on Trial: Liquid Metallic Hydrogen as a Solar Building Block
http://www.ptep-online.com/2013/PP-35-16.PDF
What is the Sun made of?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fynuCLQp1TE
Sky Scholar channel on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL7QIOZteWPpBWBOl8i0e-g
]
There are increasing numbers of scientists receptive to this solar LMH model. The current gaseous solar Model powered by fusion in its core fails to explain many observations. It persists despite those conflicts. Among the failures of the fusion model:
a) The mechanism for the observed thermal spectrum,
b) The internal distinct layers measured by helio-seismology,
c) The different rates of rotation by latitude of its perfect sphere,
d) Limb darkening,
e) The various events on the photosphere's liquid surface,
f) The mechanism for the solar wind.
All are explained by the LMH model using condensed matter in the form of liquid metallic hydrogen which is a lattice of protons maintained by loose electrons. This lattice is electrically conductive, so it supports the observed electromagnetic phenomena, like sunspots.
One of the significant conclusions from the different efforts researching the mechanisms in the Sun is new elements are being created on the surface of the photosphere by the process of transmutation. This is not the improbable mechanism of impossible pressures and temperatures which are required to sustain fusion of atomic nuclei for billions of years. Nearly all elements in the periodic table are found in the solar spectrum so they must be either on or very near the photosphere. They are being created in that complex electromagnetic environment capable of a great force of compression. This is not the ideal gas environment in an enclosed volume where pressure and temperature become related. No star possesses such a container.
The current star types are defined primarily by the measured surface temperature. That is how the Sun gets its assigned type. However, many types also reference the presence of specific elements in their spectrum. These elements are assumed to be present by the stage of the star's internal fusion cycle.
Now that the solar model is changing from internal fusion to surface transmutation, all assumptions based on the distribution of elements in a star's spectrum lose their validity. The ratio of elements is called metallicity and is used to draw conclusions on the age of collections of stars, like in galaxies or globular clusters. The result of these assumptions becoming invalid affects the many analyses in cosmology based on them.
This book is about measuring velocities, not stars, but some stars have a role in the process.
Changing the mechanisms in a star is a paradigm shift in cosmology.
This book assumes a star has a photosphere having a physical liquid surface based on liquid metallic hydrogen, as described by Robitaille.
This book will reference only the 2 variable star types, Cepheid or RR Lyrae. Other types are less important to galaxies in general, though of course, most galaxies have a mix of star types.
These variable stars are among the brightest so their magnitude can be measured by telescopes having the necessary resolution.
There are other bright, giant stars, but the variable stars are much easier to identify in a series of images.
5.1 Cepheid
Cepheid is the most frequently used type of variable star.
A Cepheid variable is a type of star that changes in brightness with a well-defined stable period and amplitude.
A strong direct relationship between a Cepheid variable's luminosity and pulsation period established Cepheids as important indicators of cosmic benchmarks for scaling galactic and extragalactic distances.
This robust characteristic of classical Cepheids was discovered in 1908 by Henrietta Swan Leavitt after studying thousands of variable stars in the Magellanic Clouds.
This discovery allows one to know the true luminosity of a Cepheid by simply observing its pulsation period. This in turn allows one to determine the distance to the star, by comparing its known luminosity to its observed brightness.
The term Cepheid originates from Delta Cephei in the constellation Cepheus, identified by John Goodricke in 1784, the first of its type to be so identified. Chief among the uncertainties tied to the classical and type II Cepheid distance scale are: the nature of the period-luminosity relation in various passbands, the impact of metallicity on both the zero-point and slope of those relations, and the effects of photometric contamination (blending) and a changing (typically unknown) extinction law on Cepheid distances. All these topics are actively debated in the literature.
These unresolved matters have resulted in cited values for the Hubble constant (established from Classical Cepheids) ranging between 60 km/s/Mpc and 80 km/s/Mpc. Resolving this discrepancy is one of the foremost problems in astronomy since the cosmological parameters of the Universe may be constrained by supplying a precise value of the Hubble constant.
Delta Cephei is also of particular importance as a calibrator of the Cepheid period-luminosity relation since its distance is among the most precisely established for a Cepheid, partly because it is a member of a star cluster and the availability of precise Hubble Space Telescope / Hipparcos parallaxes. The accuracy of the distance measurements to Cepheid variables and other bodies within 7,500 lightyears is vastly improved by combining images from Hubble taken six months apart when the Earth and Hubble are on opposite sides of the Sun.
As detected thus far, NGC 3370, a spiral galaxy in the constellation Leo, contains the farthest Cepheids yet found at a distance of 29 Mpc. Cepheid variable stars are in no way perfect distance markers: at nearby galaxies they have an error of about 7% and up to a 15% error for the most distant. [Reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cepheid_variable ]
Observation:
The Cepheid has known limitations, but for a long time a variable star having a consistent luminosity curve was the only reliable method to determine a particular galaxy's distance, its host. Alternate methods have been developed in recent decades. Individual sections in this book will cover several of them.
The 7 to 15% error is very important. References for research, should indicate such details. When a distance comes from an average, the value lacking that detail implies precision, when there was none.
This practice can be inconsistent in Wikipedia. Its topics for the elements will sometimes include the % of each isotope to know exactly where the final value came from. Lacking those percentages could imply all the atoms of this element have the same atomic mass, which is wrong.
If the distance to a galaxy is the result of combining more than one possibility, then the value must also note this result which hides the real data.
For example, if the value is the average of two, ignoring the two values and providing only the average is quite misleading about the value's precision.
5.2 RR Lyrae
RR Lyrae is a type of variable star, like a Cepheid, but used less often.
RR Lyrae is a variable star in the Lyra constellation, figuring in its west near to Cygnus. As the brightest star in its class, it became the eponym for the RR Lyrae variable class of stars and it has been extensively studied by astronomers. RR Lyrae variables serve as important standard candles that are used to measure astronomical distances. The period of pulsation of an RR Lyrae variable depends on its mass, luminosity and temperature, while the difference between the measured luminosity and the actual luminosity allows its distance to be determined via the inverse-square law. Hence, understanding the period-luminosity relation for a local set of such stars allows the distance of more distant stars of this type to be determined.
The distance of RR Lyrae remained uncertain until 2002 when the Hubble Space Telescope's fine guidance sensor was used to determine the distance of RR Lyrae within a 5% margin of error, yielding a value of 262 parsecs (855 light-years). When combined with measurements from the Hipparcos satellite and other sources, the result is a distance estimate of 258 pc (841 ly). [Reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RR_Lyrae ]
Observation:
Using the RR Lyrae has known limitations, including a shorter usable distance range compared to the Cepheid. Alternate methods for a distance calculation have been developed in recent decades. They are described in section NED distances.
Go to Table of Contents, to read a specific section.
;ast update: 01/05/2022