Search results
Stars form in large clouds of gas and dust called molecular clouds. Molecular clouds range from 1,000 to 10 million times the mass of the Sun and can span as much as hundreds of light-years. Molecular clouds are cold which causes gas to clump, creating high-density pockets. Some of these clumps can collide with each other or collect more matter ...
Sep 16, 2020 · A visualization flying into the nebula Gum 29 and the star cluster Westerlund 2 at its core. All stars are born in clouds of dust and gas like the Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula pictured below. In these stellar nurseries, clumps of gas form, pulling in more and more mass as time passes. As they grow, these clumps start to spin and heat up.
- Stellar Evolution
- The Fate of Medium-Sized Stars
- The Fate of Massive Stars
A star is born, lives, and dies, much like everything else in nature. Using observations of stars in all phases of their lives, astronomers have constructed a lifecycle that all stars appear to go through. The fate and life of a star depends primarily on it's mass. All stars begin their lives from the collapse of material in a giant molecular cloud...
When a medium-sized star (up to about 7 times the mass of the Sun) reaches the red giant phase of its life, the core will have enough heat and pressure to cause helium to fuse into carbon, giving the core a brief reprieve from its collapse. Once the helium in the core is gone, the star will shed most of its mass, forming a cloud of material called ...
A red giant star with more than 7 times the mass of the Sun is fated for a more spectacular ending. These high-mass stars go through some of the same steps as the medium-mass stars. First, the outer layers swell out into a giant star, but even bigger, forming a red supergiant. Next, the core starts to shrink, becoming very hot and dense. Then, fusi...
- A Giant Cloud of Gas. Stars begin their life cycles as clouds of gas and dust within a vast expanse of stellar debris called a nebula, formed from the gas and dust expelled by the explosion of a dying massive star.
- The Protostar. In the second stage of a star's life cycle, the giant gas cloud collapses in on itself forming a protostar. The matter at the center of the cloud compresses into a hot, dense core.
- The T-Tauri Star. The T-tauri stage, named for a star discovered in the Taurus constellation way back in 1852, begins once a protostar has collected enough material from the surrounding dust cloud to trigger a process called gravitational collapse.
- The Main Sequence. After a hundred million years of gravitational collapse a T-tauri star's core reaches one million degrees Kelvin, igniting a fusion reaction.
May 7, 2015 · Throughout their lives, stars fight the inward pull of the force of gravity. It is only the outward pressure created by the nuclear reactions pushing away from the star's core that keeps the star "intact". But these nuclear reactions require fuel, in particular hydrogen. Eventually the supply of hydrogen runs out and the star begins its demise. II.
Stellar Structure and Evolution. Stars are the source of almost all of the light our eyes see in the sky. Nuclear fusion is what makes a star what it is: the creation of new atomic nuclei within the star’s core. Many of stars’ properties — how long they live, what color they appear, how they die — are largely determined by how massive ...
People also ask
How do stars form?
What happens when a star reaches the end of its life cycle?
How do stars start their life cycles?
Do stars follow the right hand path?
How are stars born?
How long does a star last?
A star forms from massive clouds of dust and gas in space, also known as a nebula. Nebulae are mostly composed of hydrogen. Gravity begins to pull the dust and gas together. As the mass falls ...
