Jun
10
Stellar evolution
- Protostar: a collection of gas that has collapsed down from a giant molecular cloud. Over time, gravity and pressure increase, forcing the protostar to collapse down. All of the energy released by the protostar comes only from the heating caused by the gravitational energy, no nuclear fusions. This stage lasts about 100 000 years.
- T Tauri star: the stage caused when the gravitational pressure holding the star together is the source of all its energy. They do not have enough pressure and temperature at their cores to generate nuclear fusion, but they do resemble main sequence stars because T Tauris are bigger. They remain in this stage for about 100 million years.
- Main sequence satar: the majority of all stars in the Universe are main sequence stars. Their size, mass and brightness can change, but they all do the same: the convert hydrogen into helium in their cores releasing a tremendous amount of energy. A star in the main sequence is in a state of hydrostatic equilibrium. Gravity is pulling the star inward, and the light pressure from all the fusion reactions in the star are pushing outward. The inward and outward forces balance one another out, and the star maintains a spherical shape.
- Red Giant Star: When a star has consumed its stock of hydrogen in its core, fusion stops and the star no longer generates an outward pressure to counteract the inward pressure pulling it together. A shell of hydrogen around the core ignites continuing the life of the star, but causes it to increase in size dramatically. The aging star has become a red giant star, and can be 100 times larger than it was in its main sequence phase. When this hydrogen fuel is used up, further shells of helium and even heavier elements can be consumed in fusion reactions. The red giant phase of a star’s life will only last a few hundred million years before it runs out of fuel completely and becomes a white dwarf.
- Red dwarf stars: are the most common kind of stars in the Universe. These are main sequence stars but they have such low mass that they’re much cooler than stars like our Sun. They have another advantage. Red dwarf stars are able to keep the hydrogen fuel mixing into their core, and so they can conserve their fuel for much longer than other stars. Astronomers estimate that some red dwarf stars will burn for up to 10 trillion years. The smallest red dwarfs are 0.075 times the mass of the Sun, and they can have a mass of up to half of the Sun.
- Neutron Stars (in the picture): If a star has between 1.35 and 2.1 times the mass of the Sun, it doesn’t form a white dwarf when it dies. Instead, the star dies in a catastrophic supernova explosion, and the remaining core becomes a neutron star. As its name implies, a neutron star is an exotic type of star that is composed entirely of neutrons. This is because the intense gravity of the neutron star crushes protons and electrons together to form neutrons. If stars are even more massive, they will become black holes instead of neutron stars after the supernova goes off.
- Supergiant Stars: The largest stars in the Universe are supergiant stars. These are monsters with dozens of times the mass of the Sun. Unlike a relatively stable star, supergiants are consuming hydrogen fuel at an enormous rate and will consume all the fuel in their cores within just a few million years. Supergiant stars live fast and die young, detonating as supernovae; completely disintegrating themselves in the process.
