Astro 11
Lab 10

• To learn how to determine a star's lifetime from its mass and luminosity. Also, knowing the lifetimes of different stars, we will learn to determine the age of a cluster of stars that are all the same age.


• This lab relies heavily on the concepts you learned in Lab 9, so don't let the ideas from Lab 9 leak out of your head just yet.


• For question f, start by writing down the stellar lifetime relation with the properties from parts d and e. Then, refer back to page 80 to simplify your relation so that stellar lifetime only depends on one property.


• When determining the ages of the two star clusters, remember to focus on the stars that are just starting to move away from the main sequence, not the stars which live the longest (these stars are not at the end of their main sequence lives).


• All of the concepts in this lab are closely related. Take a few minutes to organize them in a way that is clear to you before you start writing your summary.