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Peering into the Potential Well: Observations of by Virginia Trimble 19 October 2001 Stars, and some other astronomical objects, end their lives when gravity finally triumphs over pressure, which is normally maintained by nuclear reactions. The end points are called white dwarfs (supported by degenerate electron pressure), neutron stars (supported by degenerate neutron pressure, with quark stars as a minor variant), and black holes (lacking all visible means of support and found also near the centers of many galaxies, including our own). The talk will summarize what we know about these classes of objects — their masses, sizes, luminosities, magnetic fields, radiation mechanisms, lifetimes, and so forth — on the basis of reasonably direct observations, and how they fit into the great cosmic scheme of things.
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