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Chapter 1
1.1 Introduction
Astronomy is a natural science which deals with the objects outlying beyond the
atmosphere of the Earth. In ancient times, observers who lived in the Egyptian and
Babylonian eras were able to intuit that there were some objects in nature situated
beyond the sky, and worshiped these as Gods. In medieval times people who lived in
Europe discovered that these objects are merely constituents of the universe and in 16
th

century Sir Isaac Newton revealed the basic relationship underlying their motion.
In the dawn of the modern age due to the development of science people have realized
the complicated truth about the universe. But still there are many questions to be
answered, and the most crucial one among them was the question of formation of the
universe. According to the some beliefs of religions, the universe was created by their
God. Despite the fact, in accordance with the theories of physics universe is an
accidental result of an event which is known as Big Bang. Due to Big Bang an
enormous amount of energy was released into the newborn universe which created a
super-hot dense soup of energy. As the universe grew older the hot dense soup of
energy started to cool down and then it triggered the creation of matter according to the
Einsteins equation [1]

(1.1)
These new born matter particles initially possessed great velocities and they are not
subjected to any kind of interactions. But as the universe got cooler these particles have
bonded between each other in order to produce molecules and dust particles throughout
the universe. And after billion years later these particles started creating stars, planets,
Nebulas and Galaxies, and still the process is continuing. The stars which glow within
the galaxies are born inside the nebulas. The nebulas are large gas clouds and in some


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occasions the dimensions of such a cloud may encompass several parsecs [1]. And these
Nebulas and dust particles are commonly known as the interstellar medium, uniformly
distributed throughout the Galaxies. Therefore when a star dies it is often replaced with
another one which is in a different position. But for a distant observer outside the
relevant Galaxy will not identify any difference in total light received from it.
But after finite time in the future this process will terminate. Then all the Galaxies will
fade away and if the density of the universe is large enough to contract the universe in
to a small region, again another Big Bang will create another universe which will be
similar to the existing one, and if the density of universe is less than the critical density,
the gravity will not counteract to overcome the ever-growing expansion of the universe,
therefore the universe will remain as a dark cold place for infinite period of time.
Nevertheless this whole process reveals that the universe controls almost everything in
the nature. It implies that gaining profound knowledge of the universe is the key to
revealing the destiny of everything.
1.1.1 The Interstellar Medium
The word Interstellar Medium (ISM) means the medium among the stellar objects. It is
collectively used to define the clouds of interstellar gas and dust which fill the galactic
disk. The ISM has smog like behavior. As a result of this nature it obscures the view of
the galactic Centre and its features. In accordance with the above fact, it is conclusive
that visible light does not peer through these dusty clouds, because of the scattering of
light due to the large dust particles which are almost comparable in size to the wave
lengths of visible light. As a result of this nature, interstellar medium becomes totally
opaque to the visible light emerging from the distant stars.



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In contrast though the ISM can be identified as the dust between the Stars,
quantitatively the mass confined to the stars is much greater than the mass which
distributed through the ISM. Evidently the ISM holds only a fraction of Galaxies total
luminous mass, this fraction is
'
125% for a spiral, and 1550% for an irregular galaxy
[3].
1.1.2. Organization of Interstellar Medium
The distribution of the interstellar medium throughout the Galaxy is not uniform, due to
the numerous interactions between matter and radiation the mater distribution changes
from one region to another drastically. For an example in the plane of Milky-way
Galaxy, where the Galactic gas is at its densest, the particle number density is ranging
from
'
10
3
to 10
9
atomic nuclei per cubic meter. Despite the fact that the interstellar
Figure 1.1: The main features of Milky way galaxy [2]


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medium represents all the dust and matter placed between stars it is convenient to
categorize them into several phases. All these phases are mainly defined by their
inherent temperature and density [4].
Coronal gas: Gas that has been shock-heated to temperatures

by
blastwaves racing outward from supernova explosions. The gas is collisionally
ionized, with ions such as O VI (

present. Most of the coronal gas has

low density, being an appreciable fraction approximately half of the volume of
the galactic disk. The coronal gas regions may have characteristic dimensions of
around 20 parsecs, and may be connected to other coronal gas volumes. The
coronal gas cools over Million year time scales. Much of the volume above and
below the disk is thought to be pervaded by coronal gas. It is often referred to as
the hot ionized medium, or HIM.
H II gas: Gas where the hydrogen has been photo-ionized by ultraviolet photons
from hot stars. Most of this photo-ionized gas is maintained by radiation from
recently formed hot massive O-type stars the photo-ionized gas may be dense
material from a nearby cloud (in which case the ionized gas is called an H II
region) or lower density inter cloud medium (referred to as diffuse H II). The
Roman numeral II represents that one electron has repelled from neutral
Hydrogen atom. When expelled electrons recombined with ions they emit
radiation with a wavelength of 656.3 nm which gives the H II nebulas its
characteristic red colour.
Warm HI: Predominantly atomic gas heated to temperatures around

in the local interstellar medium, it fills a significant fraction of the volume of the
disk perhaps 40%. Often referred to as the warm neutral medium, or WNM


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Cool H I: primarily atomic gas at temperatures about 100 this region lls
nearly1% of the volume of the local interstellar medium. Often referred to as
the cold neutral medium, or CNM.
Diffuse molecular gas: Similar to the cool H I clouds, but with sufficiently large
densities and column densities so that

self-shielding allows

molecules to
be abundant in the cloud interior.
Dense molecular gas: These clouds are often dark. In these dark clouds, the
dust grains are often coated with mantles composed of

and other
molecular ices. It is within these regions that star formation takes place.
It should be noted that the gas pressures in these dense clouds would qualify
as ultra-high vacuum in a terrestrial laboratory.
Stellar outflows: Evolved cool stars can have mass loss rates as high as

solar masses per year and low outflow velocities less than

,
leading to relatively high density outflows. Hot stars can have winds that are
much faster but far less dense.
Interstellar Dust: Interstellar dust consists of particles of silicates or carbon
compounds, which are relatively small, but have a comprehensive range in size.
The largest are 0.5 m in size (i.e. 5 10
7
m) with nearly 10
4
atoms, but some
appear to have. 100

atoms and thus are not significantly different from large
molecules. Dust has a deep observational effect, it absorbs and scatters light.
Dust reduces the light of background sources, a process known as interstellar
extinction. Examples of this are dark nebulae, and the zone of avoidance for
galaxies at low galactic latitudes.
Hot Gas Planetary Nebulae: A planetary nebula is like a compact H II region,
except that it surrounds the exposed core of a hot, highly evolved star rather than
a hot young star. The gas is ejected from the star through mass loss over time.


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Ultraviolet photons from the star ionise the gas in way similar to HII regions,
and the gas emits photons like H II region. Emission processes are similar to
H II regions, but the density, temperature and ionisation state of the gas around a
planetary nebula can be somewhat different to the H II region.
Hot Gas Supernova Remnants: Supernovae eject material at very high velocities
into the interstellar medium. This gas shocks, heats and disrupts the ISM. Low
density components of the ISM can be significantly affected, but dense
molecular clouds are less strongly affected. Hot gas from supernovae can even
be ejected out of the galactic disc into the halo of the galaxy.

Component Temperature
(K)
Density
(atoms/cm)
State
of hydrogen
Primary observational techniques
Molecular
clouds
1020 10
2
10
6
molecular
Radio and infrared molecular emission
and absorption lines
Cold Neutral
Medium
(CNM)
50100 2050 neutral atomic H I 21 cm line absorption
Warm Neutral
Medium
(WNM)
600010000 0.20.5 neutral atomic H I 21 cm line emission
Warm Ionized
Medium (WIM)
8000 0.20.5 ionized H emission and pulsar dispersion
H II regions 8000 10
-2
10
-4
ionized H emission and pulsar dispersion
Coronal gas
Hot Ionized
Medium (HIM)
10
6
10
7
10
2
10
4

ionized
(metals also
highly ionized)
X-ray emission; absorption lines of
highly ionized metals, primarily in the
ultraviolet

Table (1.1) ISM phases in Milky Way Galaxy [5]


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1.2 Origin of ISM
Prior to answer the above question it is necessary to examine the interior and the
various stages of life cycle of stars. Since the Sun is the nearest star to the Earth, the
analysis of the interior of a star can be done solely based upon the Sun. Hence the
spectroscopy data reveals that the Sun mainly compound with Hydrogen and Helium,
where 70% of mass consist with Hydrogen and almost 28% of mass is consist with
Helium and all other elements contains only 2% of mass of the Sun. As other stars in
the universe the Sun produces its energy by using the fusion reaction which converts
Hydrogen into Helium and as the result of the mass deflect of the relevant reaction the
energy is released according to the equation (1.1). The total power output of the Sun is
about

as the Sun gets older these exact numbers will change and which
will be discussed in detail at the end of this chapter.
The interior of the Sun can be categorized into 6 regions as follows
Solar corona
Solar corona is the uppermost layer of the solar atmosphere and it lies around
few million kilometers above the solar surface. The temperature of this region is
about one million Kelvin therefore it can emit hard X-rays hence this region is
responsible for the emission of X-rays from the Sun, nevertheless the density of
this region is very much low when comparing to the Earths atmosphere.
Chromosphere
Chromosphere is a region which lie closer to the solar surface, which has
temperature about 10000 K, and this region produces the Ultra Violet (UV)
radiation.



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Photosphere
The visible surface of the Sun is called the photosphere, where the average
temperature is about 6000 K. Although the photosphere looks like well defined
surface from the Earth, it contains gas far less dense than the Earths
atmosphere.
Convection zone
This region contains hot gas encircling inside the core of the Sun, where spouts
of hot gas rising upward and cooler gas cascade downward into the core of the
Sun. These rising gas transfer the energy produced in the core to the upper
layers of the solar atmosphere. Due to tremendous temperature the gas
encircling in this region consists of fully ionized particles forming a plasma
region. And the nature of this plasma is governed by the intense magnetic fields
inside the solar core.
Radiation zone
In comparison to the convection region radiation zone comprise with calmer
plasma region, and the energy is carried out by the photons throughout the
region. But the temperature of the region is much intense than the upper layers
of the Sun. It is about 10 million Kelvin (

and the region is covered with

X-rays trillions of times more intense than the visible light at solar surface.
Solar core
The solar core is the source of the Suns energy, it produces energy by using the
Hydrogen fusion reaction, in this region the temperature is about 15 million
Kelvin (1.5

and the density is more than 100 times higher than the
water,


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And the pressure is 200 billion times than on the surface of the Earth. However
the energy produced inside the core takes approximately 1 million years to reach
the surface.



The life time and the some remarkable features of stars are indistinguishably dependent
on the rate of its Hydrogen burning, in Astronomy sole meaning of burning is referred
to the Hydrogen conversion into Helium under nuclear fusion. Primarily the Hydrogen
burning rate is depend on the mass of the star, thus for the sake of simplicity the life
cycle of stars can be categorized into two major groups
Life cycle of low mass stars
Life cycle of high mass stars
Figure 1.2: The solar interior [6]


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1.2.1 The life cycle of low mass stars
In common usage stars having masses in comparable to the mass of the Sun or less are
known as the low mass stars. These stars use proton-proton chain to produce their
energy. Hence the fusion of these stars is in steady slow rate. Therefore, they are
eligible to light up for several billion years. In proton-proton chain, stars tend to convert
their inherent Hydrogen into Helium in its core. When the star eventually burns up the
Hydrogen accumulated in its core, tends to expand its outer layer. As a result of this star
becomes extremely luminous, these stages of the cycle subdivided as Sub Giant [7] and
Red Giant [8] stages. Lighting up for several hundred million years in this red giant
stage, the stars eventually repels their outer layer into the interstellar medium. While
this process occurs the dust particles confined in the exterior of the star continuously
emits to the space with solar winds. And simultaneously heavy elements (specially
carbon) are compiled in the core. Having repelled the outer layer of the star, the
remaining tends to burn its very last drop of fuel. In this stage the core mainly consists
of carbon [1]. The carbon burning core continuously ejects its interior matter with
stellar winds. Thus due to the lower temperatures ranging from 2000 K - 3000 K of
these carbon burning stars the carbon atoms tends to create clusters by combined with
one another and growing into dust particles. Having blended with the stellar winds the
dust particles are flown through the interstellar space and deposited in the interstellar
medium.
Before low mass star dies it treats one last spectacle, through winds and other processes
with ejecting its outer layers into space, makes huge shell of gas expanding away from
the inert, and the degenerate carbon core. The exposed core is still very hot and emits
intense ultra violet radiation that ionizes the gas in the expanding shell glowing brightly
and specified as a Planetary Nebula [9].


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Figure 1.3: Planetary nebula, Ring Nebula (M57) in Lyra/Hubble telescope image [10]


















1.2.3. The life cycle of high mass star
Star with mass larger than 10 solar masses is often called high mass star. Unlike low
mass stars, high mass stars burn its fuel more rapidly by proton-proton cycle to
overcome the greater gravitational contraction. But this will cause a massive destruction
for the star in very short period of time. Since the burning of Hydrogen will pile Helium
into its core much rapidly than low mass star and increasing temperature starts Helium
fusion eventually. Unlike low mass stars, high mass star tends to fusion heavy elements
into much heavier elements such as Gold, Silver and Platinum. And star tends to pile up


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these heavy elements in its core which will cause enormous thermal pressure inside the
core.
Having completed the burning of Hydrogen star tends to fuse Helium and other heavy
elements, nevertheless when in formation of iron due to fusion, will be the catastrophic
disaster for the star. Since neither fission nor fusion be subjected to iron, piled up iron in
the core will cause rapid increment of mass. Consequently this will initiate the
gravitational collapsing into its verge. Then the super hot core starts to shrink up and be
exploded, causing massive destruction. This is known as Super Nova [11]. All the
heavy elements compiled in the core will burst into space with enormous inherent
velocities in magnitude of several thousand kilometres per second. If it was not the
interstellar medium these heavy elements would left the galaxy due to their high
velocities. These particles emitted by supernova explosion will fly through the space
with coherent group of velocities creating hot expanding cloud of debris from
supernova explosion is known as Supernova Remnants [12].
When these high velocity particles travel through the ISM will suffer with large number
of collisions with the contents of the medium, causing huge decrement of velocities of
the intruder particles. Eventually after large number of collisions they tend to rest and
merged with the medium. With each collision described above, particles will transfer
fraction of its inherent kinetic energy to the medium. This transferring energy is stored
as thermal energy. Thus medium tends to increase its internal energy and it will radiate
as high frequency X- rays and gamma- rays known as the After Glow [13].


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Figure 1.4: Supernova remnants found in crab nebula [14]











Substantially the afterglow is very important event in Astronomy. Usually observations
of supernova or its remnants can reveal lot of information about the history of galaxies
and the distance between them. The deposition of intruder substances in the ISM is
known as the Chemical Enrichment [15]. Despite this process the new born stars and
planetary systems will not have heavy materials and also the carbon which necessary to
originate the life forms.






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1.3. The Importance of Interstellar Medium
Since the ISM obscures our view of universe it is not worthy to condemn the existence
of it or abandon the studies about this concept. The ISM plays a major role in the
process of the formation of galaxies, stars, planets and the life forms in inhabitable
planets. It is responsible for the origination of iron which is represent in our blood, and
the various machineries used in day to day life and all other rare elements found in the
Earth. Nevertheless it implies that ISM acts like storage room for all the matter
originally created by the Big bang. Hence the objective is to understand the mechanism
of the ISM how it is organized and distributed throughout the Milky Way and other
galaxies, what are the conditions (temperature, density, ionization ...) in different parts
of it, and how it dynamically evolves.
1.3.1. Formation of stars from Interstellar medium
It is known that stars create their energy by fusion of the light elements which are
originally present in the interstellar medium, and the stars will release the core materials
to interstellar medium through their death events. It is observed that the dust clouds in
the galactic plane are found more often in low temperature levels typically about 10 K-
30 K, and low concentration of ions and molecules when compared with the atmosphere
of the Earth. These interstellar clouds are basically composed of Hydrogen and helium,
approximately 99% of total volume of interstellar gas. Star forming clouds are usually
called molecular clouds because of their low temperatures, which allow hydrogen atoms
to pair with each other to form Hydrogen molecules. And other heavier atoms having
low abundance can form molecules such as

, etc [1]




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Due to cold temperatures which are inherent by dust clouds, gravitation starts to pull the
gas molecules to concentric regions, in order to create high dense regions relatively to
the rest of the gas clouds. If the thermal pressure in a molecular cloud is feeble to
counter interact with the compressing force generated by gravity, the cloud be subjected
to the gravitational contraction. Due to these gravitational interactions gas cloud starts
to form dense lumps in its Interior, these are known as molecular cloud cores [17]. A
cloud thus fragments into numerous pieces, each of which will form one or more new
stars











Figure 1.6: Star forming cloud of molecular Hydrogen gasses, Eagle nebula [18]
Figure 1.5: Dust clouds in the galactic plane lying in cocoon nebula [16]


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1.3.2. Formation of Protostar
In the early stages of the gravitation contraction the gas quickly radiates away its
thermal energy. In these stages the star has its own inherent temperature which is below
100 K and it glows in long wave length infrared light.
The gravitational contraction cannot continue rapidly, due to the increasing density of
gas core preventing the escape of thermal radiation for some extent. But eventually it
will grow completely opaque to infrared radiation. Hence it will trap the thermal energy
produced by gravitational contraction. Due to the prevention of radiation burst both
thermal pressure and gas temperature at the centre of the contracting region increase
dramatically. Consequently this increasing pressure starts to fight back against the
gravitational contraction. And the dense cloud fragments become a Protostars [19].











Figure 1.7: Spitzer telescopes infrared view of W5, Infrared photograph of protostar [20]


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1.3.3. The Disk and Jets
The matter surround by the protostar tends to spin around the core. Thus this spinning
disk of matter is named as Protostellar Disk [21]. This protostellar disk will eventually
become planets and other planetary features such as satellites and asteroids and
planetary remnants.
Thus above facts denote how and when the stars and solar systems originate. In
conclusion it denotes that the interstellar medium is playing dominant role in this
scenario, acting as the factories which produce stars and planetary systems throughout
the universe.
1.3.4. Eagle Nebula
The Eagle nebula has been a benchmark of ISM studies. Its resemblance with all the
facts which has been discussing in previous content makes it ironical example for ISM.
The Eagle Nebula (catalogued as Messier 16 or M16, and as NGC 6611) is a
young open cluster of stars in the constellation Serpens, its name has derived due to its
remarkable shape which resembles an Eagle and it was discovered by Jean-Philippe de
Cheseaux in 1745-46.
The Eagle nebula is distributed over 9.5 light years in height, it can be identified as a
gas cloud which consist of cold dust particles, the cluster associated with this nebula
contains about 460 stars with 1 million times luminous than the Sun.
Images made using the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995, by Jeff Hester and Paul
Scowen, greatly improved scientific understanding of processes inside the nebula. One
of these, a famous photograph known as the "Pillars of Creation" which is shown in
Figure 1.6, depicts a large region of star formation. Its small, dark areas are believed to


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be protostars. Observations verify that there are some stars inherited in Eagle nebula
forming in a environment similar to the solar system thus this leaves rather high
probability to ignite the life forms, hence one can assume Eagle Nebula might be a
dwelling for a distant Earth in near future.



Figure 1.8: Hubble Telescope image of Eagle nebula [22]