Life Cycle Of A Star

By Miharu Furuta

Introduction

In the night we see things we know as stars, but they’re not simple, they’re life is very complex and has lots of stages. A star is a large sphere of hot gas that produces heat and light. There are many stars in our galaxy, and many more in others, but the star that is the most important and the one that we orbit around is called the Sun. The Sun produces heat and light for us and is also keeping all the planets in orbit. Stars aren’t just beautiful things shining in the night, they are also very important and complex.

Nebula

A nebula is a cloud of hydrogen, chemicals and dust from space. It’s the first stage of a stars life. The birth of a star starts at a point when the nebula collapses under it’s own gravity and gas pressure and goes into nuclear fusion, later turning into a star.

http://www.makeupgeek.com/community-challenge/nebula-inspired-monthly-challenge/

Star

The star is born from the nebula and now a sphere of hydrogen and helium. It’s surface temprature can range from around 45,00 kelvin- 40,000 kelvin. It produces heat and light, and it’s surface temprature ranges from around. Soon from this stage, it will turn into a red giant.

Red Giant

A red giant is large and very bright star with a cool surface temprature as low as 3500 kelvin, it is also referred to as a super giant and is 1000 times more voluminous than our sun.

A star is transformed into a red giant when all the hydrogen in the core is consumed and the outer layers of the star start to expand 100 times it’s original size.

http://www.overclock.net/lists/display/view/id/5501707

White DwarfA white dwarf is a small and hot

star, and the last stage in the life of a star. It’s temprature is around 10,000 Kelvin to 30,000 Kelvin. A white dwarf is also the remains of a shrunken star.

A red giant turns into a white dwarf when all the elements are burned out and it runs out of fuel. The star’s outer layers start to burn away, making the star smaller and heat packs in.

http://cronodon.com/SpaceTech/WhiteDwarf.html

SupernovaA supernova is the explosive end of a

stars life and is amazingly bright for a few breif moments.

A change in the core of a star, it can happen two ways and either way it results in a supernova.

The first way is in binary star systems where gas from a star falls onto a white dwarf and holding too much matter,causing it to explode.

The second way is when a star’s life ends, as the star runs out of nuclear fuel, some of it’s mass flows into it’s core. Soon the core will be too heavy, resulting in a supernova.

http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/mpa/institute/news_archives/news1005_janka/news1005_janka-en.html

Neutron StarsA neutron star is made mainly of

neutrons and are produced when a supernova explodes. A neutron star is highly dense and has a mass of 20km.

If it’s mass gets any larger, it’s gravity will be so strong that it will suck itself in to become a black hole.

http://thefutureofthings.com/5879-magnetic-neutron-star/

Black Holes

Black holes are known as one of the results of a supernova and the end of a stars life. The density and gravitational pull is so strong that nothing can escape it, even light.

A black hole is formed when a supernova happens, all it’s mass is squeezed into the black hole, creating it’s massive density and gravitational. It could also be formed from a neutron star, but not likely, usually after a neutron star is formed it’s lost it’s chance to become a black hole, unless a large amount of mass attacks the star and creates a black hole.

Black Dwarf

A black dwarf is a white dwarf that has cooled down and is hard to spot. Unlike other dwarfs, a black dwarf is completley hypothetical.

Aside from the black dwarf there are no other stages after that have been researched.

Original Diagram

Global Importance

Most stars aren’t that important to our world, but there is one, the sun, that is excessivley important. It provides heat, light, and orbit for us, and without that, the human race would die out. Without orbit, all the planets would go out of orbit and would spread chaos.

Threats

There are no threats to a stars life cycle. Unless there was something that was invincible and could somehow can’t be melted under the extreme heat of the stars, there is nothing.

Thoughts and Learned

During this project I learned a lot about stars and how important our sun is. I also learned more about the life cycle of a star, since I thought there were only 3 stages before.

My thoughts on this project is that, the life cycle of a star isn’t something many people think about often. But it’s very important and stars aren’t just pretty things in the night sky, they serve a purpose as well.

Thank You