Search results
May 7, 2015 · The more mass a star starts out with, the brighter and hotter it will be. For a star, everything depends on its mass. 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".
- Life Cycles of Stars (Grades 9-12) - Page 1
The more mass a star starts out with, the brighter and...
- Life Cycles of Stars (Grades 9-12) - Page 1
- Giant Gas Cloud/Nebula
- Protostar
- T-Tauri Phase
- Main Sequence
- Red Giant
- White Dwarf
- Black Dwarf
- Red Supergiant
- Supernova
- Neutron Star Or Black Hole
At the first stage of their lives, stars are formed by the gravitational collapse of giant clouds of dust and gas called Nebulae. This stage is the start of their life cycle.
A protostar is the result of the gravitational collapse of a nebula. It is the formative phase of a star. During this phase, the infant star strives to gain equilibrium between its internal forces and gravity. A Protostar starts very vastly. It can be billions of kilometers in diameter. It usually lasts for 100,000 years. During this period, the pr...
Before fusion begins, the protostar goes through a period called the T-Tauri phase. At this stage, the core temperatures are still too low for hydrogen fusion, so all the star energy comes from the gravitational forceonly. The star at this point is about the same size as a low or medium mass star. However, it is much brighter. This period can last ...
The Main Sequence signifies the portion of a star’s life where its core is capable of hydrogen fusion. 90% of a star’s life is spent in this stage. The stars in the Main Sequence are of many different masses, colors, and brightness. The amount of time a star spends on the Main Sequence depends directly upon its mass. average stars like the Sun stay...
When a star has fused all the hydrogen in its core, its nuclear radiation output ceases. As a result, the star once again starts collapsing due to gravity. The energy generated by this collapse heats the core enough that the hydrogen in the surrounding stellar atmosphere can be burnt. This process causes the star’s outer layers to expand and cool d...
Once the star’s outer layers are shed, only a tiny core comprising primarily carbon and oxygen remains. The star is called a White Dwarf. Here, the mass of an entire stellar core is condensed into a body roughly the size of the Earth. Such a small size is possible due to the pressure exerted by the fast-moving electrons. This fate is only for those...
Black dwarfs are the final stage in the life of a low to medium mass star. They are the remnants of white dwarfs, formed due to the gradual cooling and dimming as they burn their remaining fuel. Eventually, they will exhaust their fuel and keep dimming until they are no longer visible to us. This process takes such a long time that no black dwarfs ...
For stars with a mass 8-9 times that of the Sun, the core temperatures become so high that nuclear fusion can occur even after the helium is exhausted. They can swell up to truly spectacular sizes; for example, Betelgeuse, a red supergiant and the tenth brightest star in the sky, is so massive that if it were in the Sun’s place, it would stretch ti...
The moment the core of a supergiant star turns to iron, it has reached the end of its life. The star collapses instantly under the enormous gravity exerted on its heavy iron core. The core shrinks from around 5000 miles across to just a couple dozen in a matter of seconds, and the temperatures can reach 100 billion K. This collapse triggers an incr...
After a supernova explosion, all that remains of the star is its core. What happens to this core depends on its mass. a) Neutron Star:If the collapsing core is of 1.4-3 solar masses, it forms a Neutron Star. A neutron star is a highly dense, heavy, and trim body comprised of neutrally charged neutrons. The force of gravity on the collapsing core is...
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 ...
Models. A stellar evolutionary model is a mathematical model that can be used to compute the evolutionary phases of a star from its formation until it becomes a remnant. The mass and chemical composition of the star are used as the inputs, and the luminosity and surface temperature are the only constraints.
May 7, 2015 · The more mass a star starts out with, the brighter and hotter it will be. For a star, everything depends on its mass. 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".
Webb's amazing imaging and spectroscopy capabilities is allowing us to study stars as they are forming in their dusty cocoons. Additionally, it is able to image disks of heated material around these young stars, which can indicate the beginnings of planetary systems, and study organic molecules that are important for life to develop.
People also ask
What makes a star 'intact'?
Why do stars get hotter if they have more mass?
How do stars form?
How does a star's life affect the creation of new stars?
What determines a star's life cycle?
What causes a star to die?
After a supernova, some stars leave behind a super dense neutron star, while the heaviest stars leave a black hole. Based on our understanding of stellar evolution, the Sun will start to run out of core hydrogen in about 5 billion years. The Sun will expand, engulfing several of the inner planets, including Earth.
