The Birth of Stars and Planets
John Bally and Bo Reipurth, 2006, Cambridge University Press
I'm looking for astronomical objects that might resemble a cold Dyson shell, around 4e26 watts at 60K, 100 AU diameter, solid without gas emission lines. This book decribes many types of stars, planets, gas clouds - and the telescopes that image them.
- p 25 - 1980s, IRAS Infra-Red Astronomy Satellite ... description in "times the wavelength of visible light (feh). note: From wikipedia, 12, 25, 60 and 100 micrometres wavelengths, with resolutions ranging from 30 arcseconds at wavelength 12 micrometers to 2 arcminutes at wavelength 100 micrometers.
- p 46 - Gemini North Telescope, optimized for infrared up to 24 micrometers, at 4200 m on Mauna Kea. note: South Pole is dryer, perhaps better for IR, Mount Vinson is at 4897 meters altitude, 750 km from the south pole.
- p 47 - Altacama Large Millimeter Array, 64 12 meter antennas as an interferometer, down to 350 micrometers.
p 156 - the total mass of all the Kuiper belt objects is not likely to exceed one-tenth of the mass of the Earth. The Kuiper belt extends to 50 AU. short period comets, < 200 years. note: 50 AU sphere = 7E26 m2, earth mass 6E24 kg, 8.6 g/m2. Naive light pressure, 0.8 g/m2, IR-filled sphere, 1.3 g/m2, IR blocked 0.3 g/m2
- p 206 - Eta Carinae, picture of cloud of expanding gas from 1841 explosion, two spherical lobes, looks about 300 pixels across in the optical. wikipedia note: 2300 parsecs away, two stars, biggest type O, about 120 solar masses, 5,000,000 L☉ , less than 3 Myear old. Dominated by emission lines - UV laser. Clouds perhaps 20 parsecs across, 15 arcminutes. A large mass of dust at 100–150 K, suggesting a total mass for the Homunculus nebula of 20 solar masses (M☉) or more.