An Introduction to Astronomy:

Stars and Galaxies

Lecture 5

The interstellar medium

University of Sydney
Centre for Continuing Education
Spring 2005
Joe Wolfe at UNSW has just won a Scientific
American's 2005 Science and Technology Web Award
that recognise creative and innovative websites

http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/einsteinlight/

called “Einstein Light: Special Relativity in 5 minutes”

 A lot of volume
So far in this course, we have concerned ourselves
with stars. However, while stars dominate the light of
the universe, they occupy only a tiny fraction of its
volume: something less than 10–27 of the total volume
of the universe.
Tonight, we’ll talk about what’s in the space between
the stars: the interstellar medium.
The gas between the stars comes
in many varieties, which we call
clouds, though many of them are
invisible at optical wavelengths.

Let’s look at the different sorts of

clouds, classified by how we
detect them.
There are three main types of clouds:

• gas recently ejected from stars

• gas associated with star birth
• gas in the diffuse interstellar medium
 Gas and dust

About 99% of the interstellar medium is gas, with the

rest mostly dust. The total mass of gas and dust is
about 15% of the total mass of the Galaxy.
90% of the gas is hydrogen, with the remainder
mostly helium.
The hydrogen in the ISM can exist in three different forms:

● ionised, with electrons and protons

wandering independently

● atomic, with each atom holding on to its

electron; and

● molecular, with pairs of hydrogen atoms

bonded together.
These states are called phases, just as material we are
used to here on Earth has different phases – solid,
liquid or gas.

Which phase exists in a place depends on the density

of the gas, the temperature, and the amount of
ultraviolet radiation. As we will see, one form nearly
always completely dominates a particular location. So
it is convenient to describe different regions of the
ISM by the state of hydrogen they contain.
 A note on nomenclature
For historical reasons, astronomers indicate how
ionised an element is using roman numerals:

• I means not ionised at all

• II means a single electron has been removed
• III means two electrons have been removed

and so on. So regions where the hydrogen is in

atomic form are called “HI clouds”, while regions
made of ionised hydrogen are “HII regions”.
 Atomic hydrogen
Atomic hydrogen can be detected because it emits a
spectral line in the radio. The proton and electron have a
property called spin. Quantum mechanics dictates that
these spins must be pointing the same direction or
opposite direction. The state with the
spins pointing the same direction has
slightly higher energy than the
opposite spin state, which means
when an electron flips over, it emits or
absorbs a photon with this energy,
which corresponds to a wavelength of
21 cm.
HI photons have such a long wavelength that they can
penetrate most intervening material, which means we can
detect atomic
hydrogen across
great distances. By
measuring the
Doppler shifts, we
can map out the
spiral structure of
the Milky Way.
Here’s a painting of
the Milky Way as it
would be seen from
above, showing the
different spiral arms.
 Ionised hydrogen
Atoms which have lost their electrons are called
ionised. This requires energetic UV photons.
Hot young stars are the primary sources for UV
photons. Photons from the star ionise the hydrogen
atoms, which later recombine. Hot O and B stars
surround themselves with a region where the rate of
recombination balances the rate of ionising by
photons: this is called an HII region.
The boundary between the ionised and neutral hydrogen is
very sharp. This image shows the young open cluster
Sharpless 212, whose stars have produced an ionised region
which is visible because of the red hydrogen emission line.
Part of the Pelican
Nebula, showing an
ionisation front
produced by bright
stars off the left of
the image, which is
slowly transforming
the Pelican's cold
gas to hot gas.
HII regions also produce bright emission lines from other
elements such as oxygen and sulphur, even though these
elements are a thousand times rarer than hydrogen. It is
these colours which make the emission nebulae some of the
most beautiful objects in the sky.

The Rosette nebula in

false colour, emphasising
the light from oxygen
(green).
 Molecular hydrogen
In dense regions hydrogen can form molecules: H2.
However, hydrogen molecules are very hard to
observe; they have no observable lines.
But there are other molecules which co-exist with
molecular hydrogen and which we can use as tracers
for the hydrogen. The best of these is carbon
monoxide, CO, which has easily observed lines at
millimetre wavelengths.
Mapping the distribution of carbon monoxide, we find that
molecules are clumped together in clouds with masses of a
few solar masses to over a million solar masses. These
clouds are called molecular clouds; the clouds near the Sun
are shown in orange in this illustration.
 Dust
About 1% of the mass of the interstellar medium in in the
form of dust – tiny grains of mostly carbon and silicon,
about 0.1 micron (0.0001 mm) in size. These dust grains
can block nearly all visible light if the dust is thick enough,
leading to dark nebulae.

Molecular cloud Barnard 68

 The grains are about the size of the wavelength of blue
light, which means that blue light is scattered more than
red light, so objects
appear redder than
they are: this is called
interstellar reddening.

Barnard 68 again, this time

observed in infrared light.
 This dust blocks so much of the light from our Galaxy
that we can’t see the centre of the Galaxy; indeed, it was
dust that prevented the recognition of the shape of the
Galaxy for so long.

The Galactic Centre region in

Scorpius, showing thick dust
lanes obscuring the centre.
 At infrared wavelengths, the dust emits strongly.

The constellation Orion

in visible (left) and
infrared (right) light.
Near a bright star, dust can reflect light in a reflection nebula.
 Often near bright stars we can see all three types of
nebulae together: reflection, absorption and emission.

The Cocoon nebula, showing

emission (red), reflection
(blue) and absorption (dark)
nebulae.
Supernova explosions and winds from hot stars can combine
to form enormous bubbles of hot gas, which can even punch
right out of the disk of the galaxy.

HST images of a bubble of

hot gas being expelled from
the galaxy NGC 3079.
We can see such bubbles in our own Galaxy, like Loop 1,
a structure in X-ray and radio maps which spans more
than a quarter of the sky. This is probably expanding gas
from the explosion of a million-year old supernova.

X-ray image from ROSAT of Loop I.

Where does the interstellar medium come from?

• hydrogen and helium left over from the start of the

Galaxy (and ultimately the Big Bang)
• other elements recycled through stars and
returned to the ISM via
✧ stellar winds
✧ planetary nebulae
✧ supernova explosions
✧ nova explosions
• dust formed in the atmospheres of red giant stars.
 The Sun
– the nearest star
We’ve discussed how stars work. Let’s take a look at
how all this compares with the one star we can study
up close and personal.
The Sun is divided into six regions:

• core
• radiative zone
• convection zone
• photosphere
(the visible surface)
• chromosphere
(the lower atmosphere)
• corona
(the upper atmosphere)
 The core
The core is the region of energy generation. The
temperature at the centre of the Sun is 15 million
degrees – hot enough for hydrogen fusion to take place.

The core extends from the

Sun’s centre to about one-
quarter of its radius, or about
175 million km. It contains
about 1.6% of the Sun’s
volume, but about one-half of
its mass.
The energy produced in the Sun’s core has to be
transported to the outside. Two different mechanisms
operate to transport the energy outwards, and these
define the structure of Sun.

The innermost layer is called

the radiative zone, because
the energy is transported by
radiation and not the
movement of material. This
zone reaches from the core
boundary out to 71% of the
Sun’s radius.
By about 70% of the way out to the surface, the
temperature has dropped to about two million
degrees. As the atoms regain their electrons, they
become much more efficient at blocking radiation, so
the energy has to be released some other way.

Convection starts: the transport of energy by the bulk

motion of gas.
 These convection currents are visible on the surface
as granules. Hot gas rises in the centres, radiates its
heat, then sinks along the dark edges. Granules
typically last 5–10 minutes, and are about 1300 km in
size.

High-magnification images of the

Sun, showing granules evolving.
 Direct observation of the interior of the Sun is not
possible; however, we can use helioseismology, the
study of vibrations of the Sun, to understand the
solar interior.

Five hours of solar oscillations.

Researchers have found the Sun rotates in bands, with
the equator rotating faster than the poles. New results
find there are bands moving faster than their
neighbours, much like the bands on Jupiter. In addition,
there is a polar “jet stream” below the surface, and a
general flow from the equator to the poles.
 The photosphere

The photosphere is the layer where most of the Sun’s

energy escapes into space. The photosphere is a few
hundred kilometres thick, and has a temperature of
5780 K.
The photosphere is covered with granules, each
nearly as large as Australia. But there are even more
dramatic features in the photosphere: sunspots.
Sunspots can be many times larger than the Earth.
They appear dark because they are cooler than their
bright surroundings, about 2000 K cooler. Most
sunspots remain visible for only a dew days; others
can last for weeks or months.
The number of sunspots visible on the Sun waxes and
wanes in an approximately 11-year cycle (although individual
cycles vary from 8 to 14 years).
Sunspots are associated with strong magnetic fields. When
sunspots come in pairs, they have opposite polarity
(shown as black and white in the magnetogram).

Continuum (left) and magnetogram (right) images from SOHO

The Sun’s magnetic field is confined to shallow layers
near the surface. As the Sun rotates, since the
equator rotates faster than the pole, the magnetic
field lines get wound up. Occasionally a loop of
magnetic field breaks free: we see the feet of the
loop as a pair of sunspots.
When this loop seen off the edge of the Sun it is called a
prominence in the lower atmosphere, or chromosphere.

Some prominences erupt

off the edge of the Sun in
minutes or hours; these
blobs of gas are truly
enormous.
 Above the chromosphere is the extended outer
atmosphere called the corona. X-ray images of the Sun show
that the corona is a violent, ever-changing place.
Coronal loops are found around
sunspots. They are associated
with the magnetic field lines
connecting magnetic regions
on the solar surface, and can
last for days or weeks.

TRACE movie of coronal loops.

Solar flares are tremendous explosions on the surface of the
Sun. They typically last a few minutes and release energy
across the whole EM spectrum, from radio to X-rays, as
well as energetic particles.
Solar flares are often, but not always, associated with
coronal mass ejections, where enormous quantities of
material are ejected from the surface of the Sun. The
two events now appear to be related but not identical.

Movie showing several coronal

mass ejections and associated
proton showers.
The Sun emits a high-speed solar wind, consisting
primarily of electrons and protons, with a few heavier
ions. It blows continuously at an
average velocity of 400 km/s.

It escapes from the Sun

primarily through coronal
holes at the poles, and is
responsible for auroras
when particles from the
solar wind are trapped in
the Earth’s magnetic field.
The region where the expanding solar wind meets the
interstellar medium is called the heliopause; the wind
becomes subsonic at the
termination shock. The Sun’s
motion through the ISM
produces a bow shock
outside both of these.
In May 2005, NASA announced that Voyager 1 had crossed
the termination shock in November 2003.
The Sun is currently in an extremely low density region
called the Local Bubble, with densities ~0.005 atoms cm–3

In the next few million years, the Sun will encounter clouds
of densities 10 atoms cm–3 or higher. This will shrink the
heliopause down to 14 AU (between Saturn and Uranus).
 Next week...

we’ll look at a whole grab-bag of things that we

haven’t touched on yet: binaries, clusters and
variables.
 Further reading
• There’s a very nice book which covers all you could want to know about the ISM:
“The Fullness of Space: Nebulae, stardust and the interstellar
medium” by Gareth Wynn-Williams (Cambridge UP, 1992).

• Images of the Milky Way at many different wavelengths can be found at

“Multiwavelength Milky Way”, http://adc.gsfc.nasa.gov/mw/milkyway.html

• The announcement about Voyager 1 reaching the solar wind termination shock is at
“Voyager Enters Solar System's Final Frontier”,
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/voyager_agu.html
• There are lots of good books about the Sun out there at the moment. Make sure you
get one which is recent, to ensure it includes information about the current generation
of solar space missions. A couple of good books I found include:
– “The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Sun” by Kenneth Lang – an
excellent summary of everything there is to know about the Sun.
– “Journey from the Center of the Sun” by Jack Zirker (Princeton UP, 2002)
– quite a nice book, with lots of information about the people who made the
discoveries.

• There is a truly enormous number of excellent web sites about the Sun. I can’t possibly
list them all here, but here are a few to get you started;
– NASA’s Solar Physics page: http://science.nasa.gov/ssl/PAD/SOLAR/default.htm
– The Stanford Solar Center, http://solar-center.stanford.edu, has lots of useful stuff,
including current solar images and lots of links to other sites.
– The SOHO web site is at http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/, where you can find all
SOHO’s amazing images
Sources for images used:
• Orion Nebula and Horsehead Nebula: image by Emmanuel Mallart, from Astronomy Picture of the Day 2002
May 30, http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020530.html
• 21 cm radiation and spin alignment: from “Explorations: an introduction to astronomy” by Thomas Arny, Fig.
15.19, http://www.mhhe.com/physsci/astronomy/arny/instructor/graphics/ch15/1519.html
• Energy levels of hydrogen: after Gareth Wynn-Williams, “The Fullness of Space”, Fig. 4.1
• Spiral arms of the Milky Way: from “An Atlas of the Universe” by Richard Powell: A Map of the Milky Way
http://www.anzwers.org/free/universe/milkyway.html
• HII region around Sharpless 212: image by Lise Deharveng, from Astronomy Picture of the Day 2001
December 18, http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap011218.html
• Pelican Nebula: from APOD 2003 October 13, http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap031013.html
• Rosette Nebula: from Astronomy Picture of the Day 2003 April 29,
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030429.html
• Map of solar neighbourhood: illustration by Linda Huff and Priscilla Frisch, from Astronomy Picture of the Day
2002 February 17, http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020217.html
• Dark nebula Barnard 68: from Astronomy Picture of the Day 2003 February 2,
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030202.html
• Barnard 68 in infrared light: from ESO Press Release, 2 July 1999: Secrets of a Dark Cloud,
http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-1999/phot-29-99.html
• Galactic Centre obscured by dust: image by John P. Gleason & Steve Mandel, from Astronomy Picture of the
Day 2003 September 28, http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030928.html
• Optical and infrared images of Orion: from Gene Smith’s Astronomy Tutorial: The Interstellar Medium,
http://cassfos02.ucssd.edu/public/tutorial/ISM.html
• Reflection nebula NGC 1977 in Orion: image by David Malin, from Astronomy Picture of the Day 2001 July 22,
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010722.html
• The Cocoon nebula, IC 5146: image by Jean-Charles Cuillandre, from Astronomy Picture of the Day 2002
October 14, http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap021014.html
• Hot bubble in NGC 3079: from Hubble Site press release, 16 Aug 2001,
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2001/28/
• ROSAT image of Loop I: from Astronomy Picture of the Day, 1999 May 3,
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990503.html
• The heliosphere: from The Galactic Environment of the Sun by Priscilla Frisch, American Scientist Jan–Feb 2000,
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/21173
• Voyagers entering the solar heliopause: from “ Voyager Enters Solar System's Final Frontier”,
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/voyager_agu.html
• Title image of the Sun: from http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/catalog/sol.php, image by Runar Thorvaldsen
• Structure of the Sun: from CPEP: Online Fusion Course: “From Core to Corona”,
http://fusedweb.pppl.gov/CPEP/Chart_pages/5.Plasmas/SunLayers.html
• Images of core of Sun: from Windows to the Universe,
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/sun/solar_interior_new.html
• Solar granulation movie: from Windows to the Universe, http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/sun/
Solar_interior/Sun_layers/Convection_zone/convection_zone.html&edu=high
• Vibrating Sun: from The Singing Sun, http://solar-center.stanford.edu/singing/singing.html
• Results from MDI/SOHO: from Scientists Discover Massive Jet Streams Flowing Inside the Sun,
http://soi.stanford.edu/press/ssu8-97/ssu.html
• Sunspot: from Some images of a medium size sunspot by Peter Brandt,
http://www.kis.uni-freiburg.de/~pnb/spottext1.html
• Sunspot cycle: from Solar Physics: The sunspot cycle, http://science.nasa.gov/ssl/pad/sunspots.htm
• SOHO continuum and magnetogram images: from SOHO Latest Images,
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/latestimages.html
• Solar magnetic fields: from 15-Phys-121: Astronomy and the Nature of the Universe by M. Hanson,
http://www.physics.uc.edu/~hanson/ASTRO/LECTURENOTES/W03/Lec4/Page8.html
• Earth compared to prominence: from SDAC, http://umbra.nascom.nasa.gov/sdac.html
• Coronal loops movie: from Solar Physics: Coronal features, http://science.nasa.gov/ssl/PAD/SOLAR/feature3.htm
• Hot bubble in NGC 3079: from Hubble Site press release, 16 Aug 2001,
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2001/28/
• Solar flare: from NOAO Image Gallery, http://www.noao.edu/image_gallery/html/im0177.html
• LASCO movie of coronal mass ejection event: from Best of SOHO Movies, http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/
• Aurora over Alaska, image by Jan Curtis, from Astronomy Picture of the Day 2000 May 19,
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000519.html