BLUE STRAGGLER MYSTERY, THE

Blue stragglers are celestial misfits. They stand out from the crowd, and they require special explanation. Remarkably, for so the observations indicate, they have aged differently to similar mass 'normal' stars. First recognized as being altogether different in the early 1950s, blue stragglers have occupied the thoughts of astronomers ever since. This book looks into the mystery of blue straggler origins, and offers its readers an insight in to how astronomers measure and determine the properties of stars in general. Indeed, the book will take the reader through the basic physics and geometry that is needed to understand the essential observations and theory of stars and star clusters.

Contents:

• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Notes and References
• The Measure of the Stars:
  • Charting the Heavens
  • Spectroscopy
  • Star Systems
  • Stellar Distance Measurements
  • Blackbody Radiators
  • Fluxes to Magnitudes
  • From Orbits to Mass and Radius
  • The HR Diagram
  • Star Clusters
  • Placing the Sun
  • Climbing the Cosmic Ladder
  • The Oddballs
• How the Stars Work:
  • The Life of a Star
  • Making a Star
  • Making Energy
  • And So, to Rest
  • Sliming Down
  • Journeys Through the HR Diagram
  • Cluster Diagrams — the Stragglers Emerge
  • The Stragglers Observed
  • Globular Clusters
  • The Daughters of Atlas
  • A Summary of Sorts
• Making Blue Stragglers:
  • Delayed Star Formation
  • Accretion from the ISM
  • All Mixed-Up
• And Finally ...:
  • The Final Problem
  • Astero-Engineering
  • A Solar Wrap
  • Swallowing a Black Hole
  • The Uses of a Spinning Black Hole
  • The Elysium Fields
  • The Search Ever Continues
• Afterword

Readership: The target audience for this book is the undergraduate science student, and the informed, general-reader on topics relating to astronomy and physics. Universities and public library.