The Life of a Star Essay

All over our galaxy are pockets of space, filled with dust and gas. Some of these clouds are denser than others, and every once and a while, a cloud of this gas begins squeezing together due to its own gravity. This is when a star begins to form. The cloud begins to form into a rotating disk, with the inner section rotating faster than the outer. The center will begin to heat up because of the pressure and thermonuclear reactions start in its center. Eventually, two hydrogen atoms get squeezed together with extreme pressure so that they fuse into one atom of helium, releasing a massive amount of energy, when this happens; the object is now a protostar. As the star ages, it begins to run out of hydrogen, and the star starts to spasm. It is now a subgiant. The

The main idea for paragraphs 6-8 in When Stars Explode is how stars do explode. Here are some details: according to the text,“But these nuclear reactions do not make as much energy as hydrogen did. Within a few million years, the star has nothing left." The text also said “So the star's center collapses, scrunching itself into a small, dense object. Meanwhile, the star's outer layer shoots into space at millions of miles per hour. The star has exploded!"

Stellar evolution stars exist because of gravity. The two opposing forces in a star are gravity (contracts) and thermal nuclear energy (expands). Stage 1 Birth is where gravity contracts the cloud and the temperature rises, becoming a protostar. Protostars are a hypothetical cloud of dust and atoms in space which are believed to develop into a star. Astronomers are fairly certain of their existence. Protostars are formed about a million years after a gas clump from an interstellar gas cloud has started

The life cycle of a star is dependent on its mass. The larger the mass, the quicker it will die out, whereas stars which are no more than half the size of our Sun can live up to hundreds of billion years. However no matter how large the star is, they all begin their lives in a nursery known as a molecular cloud.

Comparing red giants to the sun, they are about 1000 times larger. Compared to the sun’s temperature, a red giants temperature is about half as much. This is because the same amount of energy has to be spread out across a much more massive star causing it to be cooler than it was before. The name red giant was given to these stars because the change in temperature causes the star to shine in the redder part of the spectrum. Stars can spend anywhere between 1000 years and one billion years in the red giant phase. After a certain amount of time, the helium finally runs out and fusion stops. Since there is no more helium, gravity pushes the star inward. The stars outer atmosphere is then blown out into huge clouds of gas and dust which is known as planetary nebulae. These clouds of gas and dust are then made to make new stars. As for the core of the star, it is still there. The star is now a white dwarf. White dwarf stars occur when the red giant loses its outer atmosphere. White dwarf stars are extremely hot because they are composed of only the core of the star which is the hottest

Way out there in space, there are huge clouds of dust and gas and if one of those clouds of dust and gas is massive enough it's own gravity can causes it to start to collapse. When it collapses, it folds itself towards the center of the cloud, then it get denser and denser and hotter and hotter; eventually the particles of that gas and the dust are made up and brought so close together that they start to stick together. Then they start to fuse, thats the energy source of a star. The star switches and begins to shine. Inside every newborn star, hydrogen atoms are fused together to make helium. This process is called fusion and it creates the energy of every star. A star is a luminous sphere of gas producing its own heat and light by nuclear reactions (nuclear fusion).

The larger a star, the shorter their lifespan is, and they explode as supernovae, blasting out powerful shockwaves that create a chain-reaction that spews throughout the galaxy. Within just a few million years, the galaxy is forming stars up to hundreds of times more than a normal galaxy would. When all of the gas available is used up in about ten million years, the galaxy calms down and the period

The life cycle of star is on an eternal cycle of birth, death and regeneration where the gases that form stars are ejected by the very stars when they die. This all starts with the helium gas and fusion of hydrogen. The life cycle of a star is formed from stellar nebula to high mass stars and low mass stars. Hertzsprung and Russell classified stars on the main sequence of the H-R diagram about 1910 that shows the relationship between luminosities and spectral types.

Stage 8 is when the star starts to run out of fuel. It has spent close to 10 billion years burning hydrogen in its core and now it’s starting to run low and almost empty of the fuel it requires to keep burning. As the hydrogen starts to run low, helium levels start to increase in the higher temperature core as well as on the surface. However, the surface helium isn’t as noticeable because it doesn’t burn as high or fast as the inner core. But as the hydrogen completely runs out, the nuclear fusion subsides and a core of non-burning helium grows, forcing the burning of the star to head out of the inner core and up to the outer core. At this point, the radius of the star starts to grow rapidly because of the gas pressure and the core shrinks under the pressure of gravity.

This causes the ball, now a star, to shine. Depending on the mass of the star, they can reach different types of fusion. Normal stars that have a mass of up to 4 times the sun can only have hydrogen fusion, helium fusion, and carbon fission. Stars with a bigger mass is classified as a massive star, and they undergo multiple stages. They start out similar to the normal stars with hydrogen fusion, helium fusion and carbon fission, but continue over to oxygen fusion, and silicon fusion. The end product of Silicon is Iron. No star can fuse Iron, it will die. How much gas and dust is collected during the star’s formation determines the size and colour of the star. As time passes by, stars fight the inward pull of the force of gravity. The outward pressure created by the nuclear reactions pushing away from the star's core keeps the star whole. However, these nuclear reactions require hydrogen. Eventually the supply of hydrogen in the core runs out and the star begins to

After approximately 10 billion years after the star is considered to be a main sequence star, the hydrogen at the center of the core is depleted. This causes the nuclear fusion which had been previously fueling the star to die out. Helium replaces the hydrogen in the core, and the inner core begins to shrink due to gravity. This process speeds up once all the hydrogen is completely used up. The radius of the star has increased

Stars go through phases with each one altering the star. They start as a protostar then ignite to

Stars generate energy via nuclear fusion of elements. Stars of the magnitude great enough to become type II supernovae possess the mass needed to fuse elements that have an atomic mass greater than hydrogen and helium. The energy generated by these fusion reactions is large enough that it is able to counter the force of gravity and prevent the star from collapsing, maintaining stellar equilibrium. The helium produced in the core builds

What kind of heavy elements are contained in the core of a star? Do all stars share a common composition and internal structure?

Indecent bodies like the sun. Stars are made up of big exploding balls of gas, mostly hydrogen and helium. The sun is similarly a star made up of huge amounts of hydrogen, undergoing a continuous nuclear reaction like a hydrogen bomb. Stars come about when vast clouds of hydrogen, helium and dust contract and collapse due to gravity. The clouds came from astronomical plasma from “The Big Bang”, but the dust comes from the supernovae of other stars.