Talk:Technetium star

Tc star

I'm insecure that there is a defined "Tc star" notion out there. I believe a star might be called Tc star for arbitrary comparison to other stars, like the notion Oxygen star, which is just a star that isn't a Carbon star. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 08:58, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The term used amongst astronomers is "Tc-rich star", in order to express the fuzziness of the notion. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 09:04, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Carbon stars (and the other alternative, oxygen stars) are distinguishable very easily; the strongly differing appearance of the molecular spectral bands is drastic. When Angelo Secchi first did classification of stellar spectra, he recognized the carbon molecule bands and separated out carbon stars into their own class ... and this was doing visual spectroscopy: peering through a prism on the back end of a refracting telescope with only his eye as a detector!

By contrast, to find Tc, it takes a better spectrometer: higher spectral resolution and better signal-to-noise. Only AGB stars are going to show Tc (and in fact more or less all AGB stars should show surface Tc some of the time), and there are other, more efficient, ways of identifying AGB stars. Finding that an AGB star has Tc doesn't add significantly to your knowledge of what that star is doing ... you've just happened to see that AGB star soon enough after a dredge-up episode that its Tc has not decayed below the threshold of detectability.

That said, Tc stars are still notable, since they were the first clear proof that nuclear reactions have taken place within stars. BSVulturis (talk) 16:22, 14 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Rich vs. poor

Tc (in IR) used as to discriminate betw extrinsic (low lum bins) and intrinsic S stars (higher lum AGBs)

X.-H. Wang, P.-S. Chen. "Near-infrared observations of candidate extrinsic S stars". Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Otherwise the topic Tc-rich star is just about notable, not more. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 09:17, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

By the skin of the teeth. I'll look around to find another article where this article can become a section. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 12:08, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unambiguous proof

To state that the presence of this element is unambiguous proof that elements are being created is circular reasoning. It assumes that the theories surrounding the age of the universe are solid fact.

It would be more honest to say “this leads us to believe” as it is not yet unambiguous proof Ana Berean (talk) 04:13, 16 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]