- #1
Thomas Smith
- 12
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- Homework Statement
- A crude model of the sun has uniform density. The perfect gas law applies and the core is completely ionised and made up by 75% hydrogen and 25% helium by mass. In terms of mass of the hydrogen atom, find the mean molecular weight of the gas at the stellar core.
- Relevant Equations
- u=(2X+3/4Y+1/2Z)^-1
Here, i have provided the description of the mean molecular weight from my course notes as well as my workings.
I'm not sure about my values for X and Y. It states that X=1 if all of the hydrogen is ionised which i think the 1 represents 100% hydrogen but the core is also made up of ionised helium to, not only hydrogen which is why I have included the 75%= 0.75 of hydrogen as the abundance and the 25% = 0.25 of helium as the abundance.
I know the weight of the hydrogen atom is 1.67 x 10^-27 kg but not sure how the supposed answer of the mean molecular weight is converted to in terms of the weight of the hydrogen atom.