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A Star: The Process Of Death Of A Star

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Every atom in everyone and everything in the universe was created by the death of a star, or from the Big Bang itself. How stars burn and eventually die out is part of a process known as stellar evolution. A star will begin its life as a cloud of gas, and with the help of gravity, the cloud will condense to form a star, which burns happily most of its long life. However, when the star’s fuel begins to run out, the star will change once again. The change a star undergoes is directly affected by the its mass, so therefore a star with low mass will go through a different change than a star with a larger mass. The birth of a star begins as a nebula, an enormous cloud made up of the interstellar medium. The interstellar medium is all of the matter …show more content…

The temperature of the star has to be very high in order for the star to begin the process of nucleosynthesis, the process where the nuclei of lighter elements fuse together to form different nuclei, releasing energy in the process. A star can have a lifespan of millions, billions, or even trillions of years, depending on the mass of the star. Stars with a low to average mass, like our Sun, will burn longer than stars with a very large mass, because the process of nucleosynthesis will speed up for stars with a larger mass, causing their lifespan to be shorter than that of a star with a lower mass. The process of nucleosynthesis takes hydrogen and burns it into heavier elements, such as helium, allowing new elements form. A star will remain a main sequence star most of its life, burning all of the hydrogen into helium, and burning the helium into heavier …show more content…

After stars with a low to average mass, such as our Sun, have burned all of the hydrogen atoms into helium, the core of the star will condense, releasing heat. This will cause the outer core of the star to expand, making it a red giant. Moreover, approximately 5 billion years in the future, our Sun will become a red giant, and will grow so large, the outer core will almost reach Earth, which is about 92 million miles away from where the Sun is now. When the temperature of the star is high enough, the helium will then begin to burn into carbon. At this stage, the star will expand and cool down, and begin releasing materials which become the planetary nebula. A planetary nebula is a nebula that is shaped like a ring around a dying star. The star will finally collapse to form a white dwarf, which is a very dense and small star that has the same mass as the Sun, but the volume of Earth. After stars with a greater mass have burned all of the hydrogen atoms into helium, they will burn the helium into carbon. However, unlike stars with a lower mass, these stars have enough mass to continue the process of nucleosynthesis, and burn the carbon into heavier elements like oxygen, silicon, and more. The process ends when the core finally becomes iron, and can’t burn any longer. The star rapidly collapses under its own gravity, as the iron core rises in temperature. The outer layer eventually collapses on the tiny core,

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