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Stars populate the universe with elements through their “lifecycle”—an ongoing process of formation, burning fuel, and dispersal of material when all the fuel is used up. Different stars take different paths, however, depending on how much matter they contain—their mass. A star’s mass depends on how much hydrogen gas is brought ...
- A Star Is Born
- All About Mass
- Aging Stars
- The Seismology of Stars
All stars begin their lives in dense interstellar clouds of gas and dust. Even before they become stars, though, much of their future life and structure is determined by the way they form. A star is defined by nuclear fusion in its core. Before fusion begins, an object that will become a star is known as a young stellar object (YSO), and it passes ...
Once YSOs have contracted and heated enough, fusion of hydrogen into helium begins in their cores and they become main sequence stars. The rate of that fusion increases with the mass of the star, so the most massive stars are the shortest-lived. The lowest-mass stars are known as red dwarfs or M dwarfs. These experience convection — the circulation...
During the post-main-sequence evolution when stars grow huge, they may also pulsate in and out due to instabilities in the outer layers of the stellar envelope. These pulsating stars include the Cepheid variables, used in measuring distances within the Milky Way and to nearby galaxies. In addition, massive stars in the last stages of life are the s...
We can’t see directly into a star’s interior. However, just as earthquakes on Earth’s surface reveal what’s going on inside the planet, the behavior of material on the surface of stars provides researchers with information about the interior. Asteroseismology is the study of vibrations of a star. Naturally, the Sun is the star easiest to study. Res...
Feb 2, 2023 · 2. Medium Mass Stars. Medium mass stars have a mass anywhere from 0.5 to around 3 solar masses. They burn orange and yellow and have an average lifespan of around 5-15 billion years. Our Sun is a medium mass star, and its lifespan is roughly around 11-12 billion years. 3. High Mass Stars. High mass stars have a mass greater than 3 solar masses.
Mar 18, 2024 · Stellar mass is usually related to the mass of the Sun, where the Sun equals 1 m sun , 1 m ⊙ , or 1 solar mass. The bright star Sirius, the Dog Star in the constellation Canis Major, is about 2.02 m sun. One of the most massive stars is Eta Carinae, with a mass somewhere between 100 to 150 times the mass of the Sun, 100-150 m ⊙ .
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.
May 7, 2015 · A star's life cycle is determined by its mass. The larger its mass, the shorter its life cycle. A star's mass is determined by the amount of matter that is available in its nebula, the giant cloud of gas and dust from which it was born. Over time, the hydrogen gas in the nebula is pulled together by gravity and it begins to spin.
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Mass is the most important stellar property. This is because a star's life is a continuous fight against gravity, and gravity is directly related to mass. The more massive a star is, the stronger its gravity. Mass therefore determines how strong the gravitational force is at every point within the star. This in turn dictates how fast the star ...
