The Life Cycle of a Star Essay

Introduction, birth of a star, mature and ageing stars, death of a star.

For millenniums, stars have fascinated the human race. In medieval times, these heavenly bodies were thought to possess mystical powers and some civilizations even worshiped them. This supernatural view was caused by the lack of information on the true nature of stars. Modern science has enabled man to study stars and come up with scientific explanations of what they are and why they shine. Astronomers in the 20th century have been able to come up with a credible model of the entire life cycle of stars.

Green and Burnell (2004) state that the life cycle of a star takes place over a timescale that appears infinitely long to human beings. Astronomers are therefore unable to study the complete life cycle of stars since the changes occur at a very slow rate to be observed. The evolutionary pattern of stars is therefore deduced by observing their wide range at different stages of their existence. This paper will set out to provide a detailed description of the life-cycle of a star.

Stars are born from vast clouds of hydrogen gas and interstellar dust. This gas and dust clouds floating around in space are referred to as a nebula (NASA2010). Nebulas exist in different forms with some glowing brightly due to energizing of the gas by previously formed stars while others are dark due to the high density of hydrogen in the gas cloud.

A star is formed when the gas and dust making up the nebula start to contract due to their own gravitational pull. As this matter condenses due to gravitational pull, the gas and dust begin to spin. This spinning motion causes the matter to generate heat and it forms a dull red protostar (Krumenaker, 2005).

When the protostar is formed, the remaining matter of the star is still spread over a significant amount of space. The protostar keeps heating up due to the gravitational pressure until the temperature is high enough to initiate the nuclear fusion process (NASA, 2010). The minimum temperature required is about 15 million degrees Kelvin and it is achieved in the core of the protostar. The nuclear fusion process uses hydrogen as fuel to sustain the reaction and helium gas is formed from the fusion of the hydrogen nuclei.

At this stage, the inward pull of gravity in the star is balanced by the outward pressure created by the heat of the nuclear fusion reaction taking place in the core of the star (Lang, 2013). Due to this balance, the star is stable and because of the nuclear fusion, considerable heat and a yellow light is emitted from the star, which is capable of shining for millions or even billions of years depending on its size.

The newly formed star is able to produce energy through nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium for millions to billions of years. During the nuclear fusion process, the heavier helium gas sinks into the core of the star. More heat is generated from this action and eventually, the hydrogen gas at the outer shell also begins to fuse (Krumenaker, 2005).

This fusing causes the star to swell and its brightness increases significantly. The closest star to the Earth is the Sun and scientists predict that it is at this stage of its life cycle. The brightness of a star is directly related to its mass since the greater the mass, the greater the amount of hydrogen available for use in the process of nuclear fusion.

A star dies when its fuel (hydrogen) is used up and the nuclear fusion process can no longer occur. Without the nuclear reaction, the star lacks the outward force necessary to prevent the mass of the gas and dust from crashing down upon it and consequently, it starts to collapse upon itself (Lang, 2013). As the star ages, it continues to expand and the hydrogen gas available for fuel is used up.

The star collapses under its own weight and all the matter in the core is compressed causing it to be being heated up again. At this stage, the hydrogen in the core of the star is used up and the star burns up more complex elements including carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen as fuels. The surface therefore cools down and a red giant star, which is 100 times larger than the original yellow star, is formed. From this stage, the path followed in the cycle is determined by the individual mass of a star.

Path for Low Mass Stars

For low mass stars, which are about the same size as the Sun, a helium fusion process begins where the helium making up the core of the star fuses into carbon. At this stage, a different heating process from the original hydrogen nuclear fusion process occurs. Al-Khalili (2012) explains that due to the compression heat, the helium atoms are forced together to make heavier elements.

When this occurs, the star begins to shrink and during this process, materials are ejected to form a bright planetary nebula that drifts away. The remaining core turns into a small white dwarf star, which has an extremely high temperature. The white dwarf is capable of burning for a few billion years but eventually it cools. When this happens, a black crystalline object referred to as a black dwarf is formed.

Path for High Mass Stars

For high-mass stars which are significantly bigger than the Sun, the carbon produced from helium fission fuses with oxygen. More complex reactions occur and eventually an iron core is formed at the center of the star. Since this iron does not fuel the nuclear fission process, the outward pressure provided by the previous nuclear process does not occur and the star collapses.

The collapse leads to a supernova explosion. Green and Burnell (2004) describe a Supernova as the “explosive death of a star” (p.164). During this explosion, the star produces an extreme amount of energy, some of which is carried away by a rapidly expanding shell of gas. The exploding star attains a brightness of 100 million suns although this amount of energy release can only last for a short duration of time.

For stars that are about five to ten times heavier than the sun, the supernova is followed by a collapse of the remaining core to form a neutron star or pulsar.

As the name suggests, neutron stars are made up of neutrons produced from the action of the supernova on the protons and electrons previously available in the star (Krumenaker, 2005). These stars have a very high density and a small surface area since their diameter stretches for only 20km (Al-Khalili, 2012). If the neutron star exhibits rapid spinning motion, it is referred to as a pulsar.

For stars that are 30 to 50 times heavier than the Sun, the explosion and supernova formation lead to the formation of a black hole. In this case, the core of the star has a very high gravitational pull that prevents protons and neutrons from combining.

Due to their immense gravitational pull, black holes swallow up objects surrounding them including stars and they lead to a distortion of the space. Parker (2009) observes that the gravity of the black hole is so strong that even light is unable to escape from this pull. The only substance thing that black holes emit is radiation mostly in the form of X-rays.

This paper set out to provide an informative description of the life cycle of a star. It started with nothing but modern astronomy has made it possible for mankind to come up with a convincing sequence for the life cycle of a star. The paper has noted that all stars are formed from a nebula cloud.

It has revealed that the life expectancy of stars can vary from a million to many billions of years depending on their mass. A star begins to die when it runs out of hydrogen and the fusion reaction can no longer occur. The paper has also demonstrated that the death of a star is dependent on its mass. If a star is the size of the Sun, it will die off as a white dwarf while if it is significantly bigger, it will have an explosive death as a supernova.

Al-Khalili, J. (2012). Black Holes, Wormholes, and Time Machines . Boston: CRC Press.

Green, S.F., & Burnell, J. (2004). An Introduction to the Sun and Stars . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Krumenaker, L. (2005). The Characteristics and the Life Cycle of Stars: An Anthology of Current Thought . NY: The Rosen Publishing Group.

Lang, R.K. (2013). The Life and Death of Stars . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

NASA. (2010). The Life Cycles of Stars: How Supernovae Are Formed . Web.

Parker, K. (2009). Black Holes . London: Marshall Cavendish.

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Essay on Life Cycle Of Stars

Students are often asked to write an essay on Life Cycle Of Stars in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Life Cycle Of Stars

Birth of stars.

Stars begin in giant clouds of gas and dust called nebulae. Gravity pulls the particles together, and as they come closer, they heat up. When the temperature gets high enough, nuclear reactions start. This is the birth of a new star, a process that can take millions of years.

Main Sequence

Most of a star’s life is spent in the main sequence phase. Here, it fuses hydrogen into helium, releasing energy that makes the star shine. This stage can last from a few million to tens of billions of years, depending on the star’s size.

When a star uses up its hydrogen, it starts to fuse helium into heavier elements. The star expands and cools, becoming a red giant. This phase is shorter, often just a few hundred million years. For medium-sized stars like our Sun, this is the next stage after the main sequence.

Small stars gently cast off their outer layers, creating beautiful clouds called planetary nebulae, leaving behind a hot core called a white dwarf. Massive stars explode in a supernova, leaving a neutron star or black hole. This marks the end of a star’s life cycle.

250 Words Essay on Life Cycle Of Stars

Stars begin life as clouds of dust and gas. The cloud, called a nebula, starts to shrink under its own gravity. As it contracts, the center gets warmer and denser. When the core gets hot enough, nuclear reactions start. This is when a star is born, shining because it turns hydrogen into helium.

Main Sequence Stars

After birth, stars enter a long stable period called the main sequence. Our sun is in this stage. During this time, the star balances the inward pull of gravity with the outward push from light and heat. This period can last billions of years, depending on the star’s size. Bigger stars burn their fuel faster and live shorter lives.

Red Giants and Supergiants

When stars use up their hydrogen, they swell into red giants or, if they are very big, supergiants. They start to fuse helium into heavier elements like carbon and oxygen. This stage is shorter, often just a few million years. The outer layers of the star expand, and it looks red because the surface cools down.

The End of a Star

Small to medium stars, like our sun, gently throw off their outer layers, creating a beautiful cloud called a planetary nebula. Their cores shrink into white dwarfs, slowly cooling over time. The biggest stars explode in a supernova, leaving behind a neutron star or black hole. A supernova also sends new elements out into space, helping to form new stars and planets. This cycle of star life and death goes on throughout the universe.

500 Words Essay on Life Cycle Of Stars

Introduction to stars.

Stars are like living things in space. They are born, they grow, they change, and eventually, they die. The story of a star’s life is long and fascinating, and it all depends on how big the star is. Let’s take a journey through the life of a star, from its beginning to its end.

Stars begin their life in places called nebulae, which are big clouds of gas and dust in space. Inside these clouds, bits of dust and gas start to come together because of gravity. Gravity is the force that pulls things toward each other. As more and more material gathers, the center of this clump gets hotter and hotter. When it gets hot enough, a process called nuclear fusion starts. This is when hydrogen atoms join together to make helium, and this process makes a lot of energy. This energy is what makes the star shine. This baby star is called a protostar.

After the star starts to shine, it enters a stage called the main sequence. This is the longest part of a star’s life. During this time, the star is stable and continues to burn hydrogen into helium in its core. Our sun is a main sequence star. Depending on how big the star is, it can stay in this stage for millions to billions of years.

When a star like our sun uses up all the hydrogen in its core, it starts to burn helium and becomes a red giant. For much bigger stars, they become red supergiants. These stars are very big and bright, and their color is red because their surface cools down a bit even though their core gets hotter.

The End of Small and Medium Stars

Small and medium stars, like our sun, don’t end their lives with a bang. After the red giant phase, they throw off their outer layers into space, creating a beautiful shell of gas called a planetary nebula. What’s left is the core, which is now a white dwarf. This white dwarf will cool down over a very long time and eventually become a black dwarf, which gives off no light.

The End of Massive Stars

Big stars have a more dramatic ending. After the red supergiant phase, they can explode in a huge explosion called a supernova. This explosion is so bright that it can outshine whole galaxies for a short time. After a supernova, what’s left of the star can become two different things. If the core is really heavy, it can collapse into a black hole, a place in space where gravity is so strong that not even light can escape. If the core is less heavy, it becomes a neutron star, which is a very small, very dense star made mostly of neutrons.

The life cycle of stars is a grand and complex process. It shows us how the universe is always changing and evolving. Stars are not just points of light in the night sky; they are dynamic and essential parts of the cosmos. Their life cycles – from the nebulae they are born in, to the main sequence of stable burning, to their final forms as white dwarfs, neutron stars, or black holes – tell a story of transformation that continues across the vastness of space and time.

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  • Life Cycle Of Stars

Life Cycle of a Star

Stars go through a natural cycle, much like any living beings. This cycle begins with birth, expands through a lifespan characterized by change and growth, and ultimately leads to death. The time frame in the life cycle of stars is entirely different from the life cycle of a living being, lasting in the order of billions of years. In this piece of article, let us discuss the life cycle of stars and its different stages.

Life Cycle Of A Star

Seven Main Stages of a Star

Stars come in a variety of masses and the mass determines how radiantly the star will shine and how it dies. Massive stars transform into supernovae, neutron stars and black holes while average stars like the sun, end life as a white dwarf surrounded by a disappearing planetary nebula. All stars, irrespective of their size, follow the same 7 stage cycle, they start as a gas cloud and end as a star remnant.

1. Giant Gas Cloud

A star originates from a large cloud of gas. The temperature in the cloud is low enough for the synthesis of molecules. The Orion cloud complex in the Orion system is an example of a star in this stage of life.

2. Protostar

When the gas particles in the molecular cloud run into each other, heat energy is produced. This results in the formation of a warm clump of molecules referred to as the Protostar. The creation of Protostars can be seen through infrared vision as the Protostars are warmer than other materials in the molecular cloud. Several Protostars can be formed in one cloud, depending on the size of the molecular cloud.

3. T-Tauri Phase

A T-Tauri star begins when materials stop falling into the Protostar and release tremendous amounts of energy. The mean temperature of the Tauri star isn’t enough to support nuclear fusion at its core. The T-Tauri star lasts for about 100 million years, following which it enters the most extended phase of development – the Main sequence phase.

4. Main Sequence

The main sequence phase is the stage in development where the core temperature reaches the point for the fusion to commence. In this process, the protons of hydrogen are converted into atoms of helium. This reaction is exothermic; it gives off more heat than it requires and so the core of a main-sequence star releases a tremendous amount of energy.

5. Red Giant

A star converts hydrogen atoms into helium over its course of life at its core. Eventually, the hydrogen fuel runs out, and the internal reaction stops. Without the reactions occurring at the core, a star contracts inward through gravity causing it to expand. As it expands, the star first becomes a subgiant star and then a red giant. Red giants have cooler surfaces than the main-sequence star, and because of this, they appear red than yellow.

6. The Fusion of Heavier Elements

Helium molecules fuse at the core, as the star expands. The energy of this reaction prevents the core from collapsing. The core shrinks and begins fusing carbon, once the helium fusion ends. This process repeats until iron appears at the core. The iron fusion reaction absorbs energy, which causes the core to collapse. This implosion transforms massive stars into a supernova while smaller stars like the sun contract into white dwarfs.

7. Supernovae and Planetary Nebulae

Most of the star material is blasted away into space, but the core implodes into a neutron star or a singularity known as the black hole. Less massive stars don’t explode, their cores contract instead into a tiny, hot star known as the white dwarf while the outer material drifts away. Stars tinier than the sun, don’t have enough mass to burn with anything but a red glow during their main sequence. These red dwarves are difficult to spot. But, these may be the most common stars that can burn for trillions of years.

The above were the seven main stages of the life cycle of a star. Whether big or small, young or old, stars are one of the most beautiful and lyrical objects in all of creation. Next time you look up at the stars, remember, this is how they were created and how they will die.

Did you know that some of the stars we see in the sky may already be dead! Their light travels millions and millions of kilometres, and by the time it reaches us, the star would have died. So the distance between our planet and the stars further away is unimaginable, but measurable still. Watch and learn how these distances can be measured and the secrets hiding among the stars.

essay on life cycle of stars

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Frequently Asked Questions – FAQs

Choose yes or no: do stars die, what are the different stages of life cycle of stars.

Different stages of life cycle of stars are:

  • Giant Gas Cloud
  • T-Tauri Phase
  • Main Sequence
  • The Fusion of Heavier Elements
  • Supernovae and Planetary Nebulae

State true or false: All stars start as a gas cloud and end as a star remnant.

In which stage, star converts hydrogen atoms into helium at its core, which reaction takes place inside the star.

Nuclear fusion reaction takes place inside the star.

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Life Cycle of a Star

What is a Star? A star is a giant sphere of extremely hot, luminous gas (mostly hydrogen and helium) held together by gravity. A few examples of well-known stars are Pollux, Sirius, Vega, Polaris, and our own Sun. Stars are essentially the building blocks of galaxies and are the source of all the heavier elements. Their age, composition, and distribution are essential for studying the Universe. Therefore, we must study stellar evolution in detail. Stellar evolution is the process by which a star changes through time. It can be compared to a human life cycle.

All stars go through roughly the same life cycle. However, their life spans vary greatly, as well as how they eventually die.

essay on life cycle of stars

What Determines the Life Cycle of a Star

The mass determines a star’s life cycle. The star’s mass depends upon the amount of stellar material available in the nebula from which it forms. The more massive a star, the shorter is its life span. The reason is that the hydrogen supply of a massive star is used up much quicker due to the higher core temperatures of such stars. Other types of stars tend to burn for longer, though they also tend to be much colder.

Stars Based on Their Mass

1. low mass stars.

Low mass stars have a mass not more than 0.5 solar masses. These stars are the smallest, coldest and dimmest stars in the Universe. They burn red, orange, or in some cases yellow due to their low heat. They burn up their fuel very slowly and have incredibly long lives, anywhere from 10 to 50 billion years. An excellent example of a low mass star is the red dwarf Proxima Centauri, which is closest to the Sun.

2. Medium Mass Stars

Medium mass stars have a mass anywhere from 0.5 to around 3 solar masses. They burn orange and yellow and have an average lifespan of around 5-15 billion years. Our Sun is a medium mass star, and its lifespan is roughly around 11-12 billion years.

3. High Mass Stars

High mass stars have a mass greater than 3 solar masses. They are extremely hot and glow blue and white. They have very short life spans, from a couple of billion years to as low as 10 million years only, and they end their lives with a spectacular explosion. Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, is a blue high mass star.

Different Stages of a Star’s Life Cycle

The life cycle of a star can be divided into very distinct stages. As stated previously, we can compare it to a human life cycle for easier understanding, as it spans from birth to middle age, and finally, the death of a star.

The first four stages are common to all types of stars.

1. Giant Gas Cloud/Nebula

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.

2. Protostar

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 protostar spins very rapidly, generating intense heat and pressure and causing the gas cloud to collapse further.

When the temperature reaches about 10 million K, hydrogen fusion can finally occur, and the star is born.

3. T-Tauri Phase

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 force only. 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 up to 100 million years and represents a period of fluctuations in the brightness of a star as it tries to balance its internal and gravitational forces. Once nuclear fusion starts and equilibrium is achieved, the star is considered a Main Sequence star.

4. Main Sequence (Small to Average Stars/Massive Stars)

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 on the Main Sequence for billions of years. The smallest stars, the red dwarfs, burn their hydrogen supplies so slowly that none of them have left the Main Sequence since the Universe was formed!

On the other hand, the most massive stars, like Sirius, will use up their hydrogen quickly and exit the Main Sequence after only a few million years. When a star has fused all the hydrogen in its core to helium, it exits the Main Sequence and enters its death throes.

How a star dies depends on its mass.

The following three stages apply only to low and medium(average) mass stars.

5. Red Giant

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 down to just around 2500-3500 K, thus becoming redder. This stage in a star’s life can last for up to a billion years, and the stars can swell up to 100-1000 times the size of the Sun.

Planetary Nebula : The star’s core continues to heat up, reaching temperatures of up to 100 million K, and helium fusion can now take place in the core. For small and average stars like the Sun, the core will never get hot enough for further fusion. Instead, once the helium in the core is used up, the star expels the outer layers of gas in an explosion, called a planetary nebula, leaving behind a white dwarf.

6. White Dwarf

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 stars whose cores are not bigger than 1.4 solar masses. These stars are scorching; hence, they glow white.

7. Black Dwarf

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 have formed since the beginning of the Universe, so they are strictly theoretical.

The following three stages apply only to high (massive) mass stars.

5. Red Supergiant

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 till Jupiter! The process of nuclear fusion in the core carries on till iron is formed. No further fusion can occur at this stage, as fusing iron consumes energy rather than release it.

6. Supernova

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 incredible explosion, known as a Supernova. Supernovae are some of the brightest and most violent events in the Universe; they can outshine entire galaxies! The energy released during a supernova is so great that a fusion of iron can finally occur, and all heavier elements are created in the explosion.

7. Neutron Star or Black Hole

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 so enormous that the negatively charged electrons are pushed right into the nucleus, where they combine with the positively charged protons to form neutrons. As such, a vast mass is compressed into a body no more than 20 km in diameter. Neutron stars are the densest and heaviest objects in the Universe.

b) Black Hole: For stellar cores of more than 3 solar masses, the force of gravity is so strong that the collapse is unstoppable. Such a big mass collapses to a point known as a singularity. Here, the gravitational force is so strong that nothing can escape it, not even light. Such a phenomenon is called a Black Hole. Their gravity is so strong that black holes even pull in neighboring stars and planets and “eat” them! Since no light or other electromagnetic emissions can escape a black hole, our only way to detect them is to observe them “feeding” on the stellar matter.

Ans: All stars follow a 7-step life cycle from their birth in a nebula to ending up as stellar remnants. It goes from a Protostar to the T-Tauri phase, then the Main Sequence, Red giant or supergiant, fusion of the heavier elements, and finally a Planetary Nebula or a Supernova.

Ans: Brown dwarfs are essentially failed stars. Due to their small size, the core of these stars never achieves a temperature high enough for hydrogen fusion. They can be anywhere from 15 to 80 times the size of Jupiter and are often confused with planets due to their low luminosity.

Ans: Neutron stars do not last forever. Like white dwarfs, they radiate their energy out very slowly and eventually fade until they become undetectable.

Ans. Neutron stars continue to rotate just like the original star. However, since they are much smaller and denser, they rotate at incredible speeds – up to hundreds of times in a second. The rotation, together with their strong magnetic field , causes electromagnetic radiation emitted from the poles. This radiation is detected in pulses; hence, these stars were named “Pulsars”.

  • What is a Star – Skyandtelescope.org
  • How do stars form and evolve –  Science.nasa.gov
  • Stellar Evolution – Astronomy.swin.edu.au
  • The Life Cycles of Stars: How Supernovae Are Formed – Imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov
  • High Mass Stars – Lumenlearning.com
  • Types of Stars – Universetoday.com

Article was last reviewed on Thursday, February 2, 2023

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Life cycle of a star.

All stars form in nebulae , which are huge clouds of gas and dust. Though they shine for many thousands, and even millions of years, stars do not last forever. The changes that occur in a star over time and the final stage of its life depend on a star's size . 

Life Cycle of Star

Nuclear reactions at the centre (or core) of a star provides energy which makes it shine brightly. This stage is called the ' main sequence '. The exact lifetime of a star depends very much on its size. Very massive stars use up their fuel quickly. This means they may only last a few hundred thousand years. Smaller stars use up fuel more slowly so will shine for several billion years.

Eventually, the hydrogen which powers the nuclear reactions inside a star begins to run out. The star then enters the final phases of its lifetime. All stars will expand, cool and change colour to become a red giant . What happens next depends on how massive  the star is.

A smaller star, like the Sun , will gradually cool down and stop glowing. During these changes it will go through the planetary nebula  phase, and white dwarf phase. After many thousands of millions of years it will stop glowing and become a black dwarf.

A massive star experiences a much more energetic and violent end. It explodes as a supernova . This scatters materials from inside the star across space. This material can collect in nebulae and form the next generation of stars. After the dust clears, a very dense neutron star  is left behind. These spin rapidly and can give off streams of radiation, known as pulsars .

If the star is especially massive, when it explodes it forms a black hole .

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Neutron Star

An artist's rendering shows a neutron star —located 50,000 light-years from Earth—that flared up so brightly in December 2004 that it temporarily blinded all the x-ray satellites in space and lit up the Earth's upper atmosphere. The flare-up occurred when the star's massive, twisting magnetic field ripped open its crust, releasing an explosion of gamma rays.

Everything you wanted to know about stars

These luminous balls of gas helped ancient explorers navigate the seas and now help modern-day scientists navigate the universe.

Gently singing Twinkle, twinkle, little star may lull a baby to sleep, but beyond the confines of Earth’s atmosphere, the words aren’t exactly accurate. A correct, albeit less soothing, rendition might be: Emit, emit, gigantic ball of gas .

Stars are huge celestial bodies made mostly of hydrogen and helium that produce light and heat from the churning nuclear forges inside their cores. Aside from our sun, the dots of light we see in the sky are all light-years from Earth. They are the building blocks of galaxies, of which there are billions in the universe. It’s impossible to know how many stars exist, but astronomers estimate that in our Milky Way galaxy alone, there are about 300 billion .

A star is born

The life cycle of a star spans billions of years. As a general rule, the more massive the star, the shorter its life span.

Birth takes place inside hydrogen-based dust clouds called nebulae . Over the course of thousands of years, gravity causes pockets of dense matter inside the nebula to collapse under their own weight. One of these contracting masses of gas, known as a protostar, represents a star’s nascent phase. Because the dust in the nebulae obscures them, protostars can be difficult for astronomers to detect.

As a protostar gets smaller, it spins faster because of the conservation of angular momentum—the same principle that causes a spinning ice skater to accelerate when she pulls in her arms. Increasing pressure creates rising temperatures, and during this time, a star enters what is known as the relatively brief T Tauri phase.

Millions of years later, when the core temperature climbs to about 27 million degrees Fahrenheit (15 million degrees Celsius), nuclear fusion begins, igniting the core and setting off the next—and longest—stage of a star’s life, known as its main sequence.

Most of the stars in our galaxy, including the sun, are categorized as main sequence stars. They exist in a stable state of nuclear fusion, converting hydrogen to helium and radiating x-rays. This process emits an enormous amount of energy, keeping the star hot and shining brightly.

All that glitters

Some stars shine more brightly than others. Their brightness is a factor of how much energy they put out–known as luminosity –and how far away from Earth they are. Color can also vary from star to star because their temperatures are not all the same. Hot stars appear white or blue, whereas cooler stars appear to have orange or red hues.

By plotting these and other variables on a graph called the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, astronomers can classify stars into groups. Along with main sequence and white dwarf stars, other groups include dwarfs, giants, and supergiants. Supergiants may have radii a thousand times larger than that of our own sun.

Stars spend 90 percent of their lives in their main sequence phase. Now around 4.6 billion years old, Earth’s sun is considered an average-size yellow dwarf star, and astronomers predict it will remain in its main sequence stage for several billion more years.

As stars move toward the ends of their lives, much of their hydrogen has been converted to helium. Helium sinks to the star's core and raises the star's temperature—causing its outer shell of hot gases to expand. These large, swelling stars are known as red giants. But there are different ways a star’s life can end, and its fate depends on how massive the star is.

The red giant phase is actually a prelude to a star shedding its outer layers and becoming a small, dense body called a white dwarf . White dwarfs cool for billions of years. Some, if they exist as part of a binary star system , may gather excess matter from their companion stars until their surfaces explode, triggering a bright nova. Eventually all white dwarfs go dark and cease producing energy. At this point, which scientists have yet to observe, they become known as black dwarfs.

Massive stars eschew this evolutionary path and instead go out with a bang—detonating as supernovae . While they may appear to be swelling red giants on the outside, their cores are actually contracting, eventually becoming so dense that they collapse, causing the star to explode. These catastrophic bursts leave behind a small core that may become a neutron star or even, if the remnant is massive enough, a black hole .

Because certain supernovae have a predictable pattern of destruction and resulting luminosity, astronomers are able to use them as “standard candles,” or astronomical measuring tools, to help them measure distances in the universe and calculate its rate of expansion.

Helix Nebula

The familiar eyeball shape of the Helix Nebula shows only two dimensions of this complex celestial body. But new observations suggest it may actually be composed of two gaseous disks nearly perpendicular to each other.

Depending on cloud cover and where you’re standing, you may see countless stars blanketing the sky above you, or none at all. In cities and other densely populated areas, light pollution makes it nearly impossible to stargaze. By contrast, some parts of the world are so dark that looking up reveals the night sky in all its rich celestial glory.

Ancient cultures looked to the sky for all sorts of reasons. By identifying different configurations of stars—known as constellations—and tracking their movements, they could follow the seasons for farming as well as chart courses across the seas. There are dozens of constellations . Many are named for mythical figures, such as Cassiopeia and Orion the Hunter. Others are named for the animals they resemble, such as Ursa Minor (Little Bear) and Canus Major (Big Dog).

Today astronomers use constellations as guideposts for naming newly discovered stars. Constellations also continue to serve as navigational tools. In the Southern Hemisphere, for example, the famous Southern Cross constellation is used as a point of orientation. Meanwhile people in the north may rely on Polaris, or the North Star, for direction. Polaris is part of the well-known constellation Ursa Minor, which includes the famous star pattern known as the Little Dipper.

Read This Next

Nasa’s webb telescope is rewriting the story of space and time, this is what the first stars looked like as they were being born, most distant star ever seen found in hubble image, astronomers identify the stars where any aliens would have a view of earth.

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Life Cycle of a Star (GCSE Physics)

Life cycle of a star, star size and life cycle.

  • Stars have a life cycle. All the stars in our Solar System go through a life cycle , including formation , stabilisation and eventual destruction .
  • Stars are various sizes. In our Solar System, the stars are all different sizes . Some are the size of the Sun, some are smaller than the Sun, whilst others are bigger than the Sun. When you look at a star, whether it be via a telescope or just using your eyes, the size you see is determined by i) its actual size, and ii) the distance from you.
  • The life cycle depends on star size. The life cycle of a star will depend on the size of the star. Small stars, like the Sun, will go through one particular life cycle, whilst larger stars will go through another life cycle.

Steps in the Life Cycles of Stars

Stars the size of the sun.

The Sun is a relatively small star in our Milky Way. Its life cycle follows a particular path, as shown below:

essay on life cycle of stars

Stars Bigger than the Sun

Stars bigger than the Sun will follow a different life cycle:

essay on life cycle of stars

Summary of the Life Cycle

Here is a summary diagram showing the life cycle of stars.

Life Cycle of a Star

Colour and Surface Temperature

We’ve seen that stars can be found and classified based on their colour . The colour of a star also reflects the surface temperature of a star. This is because very hot objects emit visible light, which is seen as different colours.

essay on life cycle of stars

The more blue a star, the higher the temperature of a star. The more red a star, the lower the temperature of a star.

Absolute Magnitude

Two factors can affect the brightness of a star:

  • Emission of visible light
  • Distance of the star

The absolute magnitude of stars determines the brightness of a star, without distance being a variable.

The brighter the star, the lower the magnitude. The dimmer the star, the higher the magnitude.

Hertzsprung-Russell Diagrams

We’ve covered the temperature and absolute magnitude of a star. This information can be presented graphically on a Hertzsprung-Russell diagram.

Life Cycle of a Star

As you can see, the temperature of the star is on the x axis and the absolute magnitude of the star is on the y axis.

Most of the stars on the graph can be found going from the top left of the graph to the bottom right. We called this the Main Sequence.

Other important features on Hertzsprung-Russell diagrams include the White Dwarfs, the Red Giants and the Red supergiants.

Forming New Elements

In this section we will learn about the many elements which are found in stars. We will learn how they are formed and distributed.

Formation of the Elements

The fusion reactions that occur in stars are used produce new elements . In the core of the star, we find hydrogen nuclei and many other light elements. At very high temperatures, the nuclei of these elements are used in nuclear fusion reactions.

As the nuclei of these light elements join together, they will form new, heavier elements. For example, when hydrogen nuclei join together, they form helium nuclei.

Distributing the Elements

Although elements are formed in the cores of stars, they can be distributed across the universe. This is occurs through a supernova , which we discussed in the previous section. The elements are distributed along with the layers of gas and dust that are flung into space.

Heavier Elements

In the previous section, we discussed that very heavy elements are produced in stars bigger than the Sun. These elements can be heavier than iron. These elements are the ones that will be distributed in supernovae throughout the universe.

Life Cycle of a Star

A star is a large, glowing ball of gas in space that gives off light and heat. Stars are made up of hot, dense gas that is constantly undergoing nuclear reactions, which release a tremendous amount of energy in the form of light and heat.

The life cycle of a star begins with a cloud of gas and dust in space. This cloud collapses under its own gravity to form a protostar, which then continues to contract and heat up until it becomes a main sequence star. After it has used up most of its fuel, a star may expand into a red giant and then eventually collapse to form a white dwarf. In some cases, a star can also go supernova and become a neutron star or a black hole.

A protostar is a stage in the life cycle of a star, when a cloud of gas and dust has begun to contract under its own gravity but has not yet become hot enough to start shining. As the protostar continues to contract and heat up, it eventually becomes a main sequence star.

A main sequence star is the stage in the life cycle of a star when it is shining brightly and stable, and is producing energy through nuclear reactions in its core. Our Sun is a main sequence star, and this stage can last billions of years depending on the size of the star.

When a star runs out of fuel, it can no longer produce energy through nuclear reactions in its core. This can cause the star to expand into a red giant, or in some cases, it can go supernova.

A red giant is a stage in the life cycle of a star, when it has run out of fuel in its core and has expanded to many times its original size. Red giants are much cooler and less dense than main sequence stars, but they are still incredibly bright.

A white dwarf is the final stage in the life cycle of a star that is similar in size to the Sun. When a star has used up all of its fuel and can no longer produce energy, it collapses to form a white dwarf, which is a small, very dense star that is no longer producing light or heat.

A supernova is a tremendous explosion that occurs when a star has run out of fuel and can no longer produce energy. The explosion releases a tremendous amount of energy in the form of light, heat, and matter, and can sometimes leave behind a neutron star or a black hole.

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Edexcel 1 Key Concepts of Physics

Resistance (gcse physics), edexcel 10 static electricity, structure of an atom (gcse physics), transporting electrical energy (gcse physics), dangers of electricity (gcse physics), mains electricity (gcse physics), power: work done (gcse physics), alternating and direct potential difference (gcse physics), power: current and resistance (gcse physics), power: current and potential difference (gcse physics), transfers of energy (gcse physics), circuit components (gcse physics), edexcel 11 magnetism and the motor effect, sparks (gcse physics), drawing electric field patterns (gcse physics), electric fields (gcse physics), static electricity (gcse physics), charged objects (gcse physics), edexcel 12 particle model, electric motors (gcse physics), fleming’s left hand rule (gcse physics), electromagnetism (gcse physics), magnetic fields (gcse physics), poles of a magnet (gcse physics), edexcel 2 motion and forces, balancing moments (gcse physics), momentum (gcse physics), conservation of momentum (gcse physics), factors affecting braking distance (gcse physics), newton’s third law (gcse physics), stopping distance (gcse physics), reaction time (gcse physics), newton’s first law (gcse physics), newton’s second law (gcse physics), terminal velocity (gcse physics), edexcel 3 conservation of energy, energy resources: trends in usage (gcse physics), non-renewable energy sources (gcse physics), renewable energy sources (gcse physics), energy resources: electricity generation (gcse physics), energy resources: transport (gcse physics), energy resources: heating (gcse physics), reducing energy waste (gcse physics), efficiency (gcse physics), the law of conservation of energy (gcse physics), energy changes in a system (gcse physics), edexcel 4 waves, frequency range (gcse physics), waves for detection & exploration(gcse physics), the ear (gcse physics), sound waves through solids (gcse physics), measuring the speed: water waves (gcse physics), measuring the speed: sound waves 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GCSE Physics revision notes

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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 they are. The study of stellar structure and evolution is dedicated to understanding how stars change over their lifetimes, including the processes that shape them on the inside.

Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian researchers study stellar structure and evolution in many ways:

Studying fluctuations in light on nearby stars to determine their internal processes. While most stars appear too small to distinguish surface features, astronomers can infer variations in their interiors by how their light fluctuates. Those changes are due to “ starspots ” — dark spots created by magnetic variations in a star — and starquakes. For example, astronomers recently discovered that Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun, has starspots. That discovery was surprising, because researchers previously thought red dwarf stars like Proxima Centauri don’t have strong magnetic fluctuations. Proxima Centauri Might Be More Sunlike Than We Thought

Monitoring sound waves running through the interiors of Sun-like stars. These starquakes produce variations in the star’s light. Much like earthquakes provide hints about Earth’s, these sound waves allow astronomers to measure what’s going on inside stars. Using NASA’s Kepler observatory and other telescopes monitoring stars for exoplanet signals, researchers measure the fluctuations of light caused by starquakes. Solar-Like Oscillations in Other Stars

Studying stars that are similar to the Sun at other stages in evolution. We can only observe our Sun at this particular time of its life, but astronomers can see its past and future by looking at similar stars earlier or later in their cycle. Astronomers observe newly born Sun-like stars to determine what ours may have been like, and the effect that had on planet formation. Young Sun-like Star Shows a Magnetic Field Was Critical for Life on the Early Earth

Observing stars in the final stages of their lives. These giant stars pulsate and shed huge amounts of matter. Studying them reveals how they enrich interstellar space with new atoms, and how pulsation relates to physical processes deep in the star’s interior. Using the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and other observatories, astronomers can identify the composition of the “winds” from aging stars. Pulsation-Driven Winds in Giant Stars

Identifying stars at all stages of life — including places where both dying and newborn stars coexist. Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes, astronomers have learned that the violent final stages of a star’s life can spur the creation of new stars, by compressing interstellar gas until it collapses under its own gravity to make protostars. In other instances, X-ray light from a binary system with a black hole or neutron star illuminates a star-forming region, which is opaque to visible light, but transparent to X-rays. A Stellar Circle of Life

Measuring the ages of stars to understand how they change over the course of their lives. Stars begin their lives spinning fast, and slow down gradually over time. Researchers want to know exactly how that rate changes, and how it reflects the aging of the star itself. Using NASA’s Kepler observatory and other instruments, astronomers have tracked starspots to measure the spinning of stars in a single cluster . Stars' Spins Reveal Their Ages  

Studying YSOs and their environments, as a way to determine how stars have the masses they do. The mass of a star dictates its life cycle, and that mass is set during its growth period before it’s even a star. Using the CfA’s Submillimeter Array (SMA) and other telescopes capable of seeing through the gas and dust around newborn stars, astronomers can track the evolution from protostar to star. SMA Unveils How Small Cosmic Seeds Grow Into Big Stars

Solar Dynamics Observatory image of two large sunspot groups

This NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory image reveals two large sunspot groups on the surface of the Sun. Sunspots and starspots are produced by magnetic activity, providing information about the internal structure of stars.

A Star Is Born

All stars begin their lives in dense interstellar clouds of gas and dust . Even before they become stars, though, much of their future life and structure is determined by the way they form.

A star is defined by nuclear fusion in its core. Before fusion begins, an object that will become a star is known as a young stellar object (YSO), and it passes through two major stages of development.

During the protostar phase, the YSO is still gathering mass onto itself in the form of gas and dust. Protostars are completely hidden in visible light, so all the information we have about them comes from infrared, submillimeter, and X-ray observations. The protostar’s gravity gathers mass into a spinning circumstellar disk, and some of the matter is funneled into powerful jets shooting away from the YSO. These processes help determine the mass of the eventual star, and as such dictate much of the rest of the star’s life.

During the pre-main-sequence (PMS) phase, the YSO contracts and heats up. New planets form out of the remains of the circumstellar disk. The specific way the YSO behaves depends on how much mass it gathers. Lower mass stars like the Sun pass through a stage of wild fluctuations as they lose their shrouds of gas and dust, during which they are called “T Tauri stars”. Higher mass PMS stars produce huge amounts of radiation, which can drive the surrounding gas away. This can throttle the formation of other stars, either preventing them from forming or keeping them at lower masses.

The jets and outflows of particles from YSOs can have a profound influence on the surrounding nebula. Since many stars form in a cluster from the same pool of gas and dust, they affect each other’s growth and development in profound ways.

All About Mass

Once YSOs have contracted and heated enough, fusion of hydrogen into helium begins in their cores and they become main sequence stars. The rate of that fusion increases with the mass of the star, so the most massive stars are the shortest-lived. 

The lowest-mass stars are known as red dwarfs or M dwarfs. These experience convection — the circulation of matter — throughout their interior. That means they burn for a very long time, giving them lifetimes much longer than the 13.8 billion years the universe has been around. None of these stars have lived through their entire lifecycle yet.

The Sun is a moderate mass star with a lifetime of roughly 10 billion years; we’re currently about halfway through the Sun’s main sequence. Stars in this middle range of mass have a distinct core where fusion takes place, and that limits the available supply of hydrogen to fuse into helium. Once that supply is exhausted, the star leaves the main sequence and swells into a red giant. The core then collapses slightly as it begins fusing helium into carbon and oxygen. Once the available helium supply is used up, the star sheds its outer layers , exposing the remnant of its core. This remnant is a white dwarf .

The highest mass stars consume their available hydrogen even more quickly, passing through the main sequence and helium-fusion phase in a much shorter amount of time. However, these stars have enough mass to keep fusion going, producing heavier elements up to iron. Elements beyond iron on the periodic table require more energy to fuse than is released by the fusion process, so the core of these stars can’t keep up the work. The core collapses under gravity, and the outer layers of the star are blown off in a supernova explosion. For the most massive stars, the cores collapse into black holes ; the slightly less massive stars leave behind neutron stars .

Aging Stars

During the post-main-sequence evolution when stars grow huge, they may also pulsate in and out due to instabilities in the outer layers of the stellar envelope. These pulsating stars include the Cepheid variables , used in measuring distances within the Milky Way and to nearby galaxies. In addition, massive stars in the last stages of life are the source of new elements. Fusion during the giant phases of stellar evolution produces elements like carbon, oxygen, and silicon that may be cycled toward the outer layers of the star. For the most massive stars, neutrons from fusion bombard atoms in the star to make yet more elements, including technetium, a rapidly-decaying element that doesn’t exist naturally on Earth. The more stable atoms from the dying star appear in the spectrum of its light, and are shed into interstellar space as the star dies.

The Seismology of Stars

We can’t see directly into a star’s interior. However, just as earthquakes on Earth’s surface reveal what’s going on inside the planet, the behavior of material on the surface of stars provides researchers with information about the interior. Asteroseismology is the study of vibrations of a star.

Naturally, the Sun is the star easiest to study. Researchers have measured the patterns of waves on the surface set up by the flow of atoms and energy deep inside the Sun. For more distant stars, astronomers observe variations in light from these processes. In some stars, the churn of hot matter is enough to produce “starquakes”: more violent fluctuations in the star’s behavior.

  • How do stars and planets form and evolve?
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Stars have a life-cycle . The Sun is a main sequence star which means it is in the middle of its life. 

Stars begin as a cloud of gas and dust, brought together by gravity . This cloud is called a nebula . 

Gravity causes the dust cloud to become more hot and more dense. It has now become a protostar . Eventually, the temperature and pressure become high enough that hydrogen nuclei undergo fusion and become helium nuclei. The fusion reactions release large amounts of energy to keep the core of the star hot.  

The protostar then becomes a main sequence star . In main sequence stars , the outward pressure caused by the fusion reaction is balanced with the gravitational force caused by the mass of the star. Stars usually remain in the main sequence for several billion years.

A star leaves the main sequence when the hydrogen starts to run out. What happens next depends on the mass of the star: 

  • If the star is the size of the Sun or less, it becomes unstable and expands, forming a red giant . The star then ejects its outer layers and becomes a white dwarf , which is the small, hot core of the star. Finally the white dwarf cools into a black dwarf . 
  • If the star is much bigger than the Sun, it becomes a red supergia n t . Supergiants expand and become more hot as fusion occurs in heavier elements, creating elements up to iron . The supergiant eventually becomes so big that it collapses in on itself as a supernova . This is a massive explosion in which fusion occurs and heavier elements than iron are formed. The explosion ejects the outer layers of the star into space. What remains is a dense core called neutron star , or if the supergiant was large enough, a black hole will be formed.

A black hole is an extremely dense point in space, that has such a strong gravitational field , that not even light can escape from it. 

essay on life cycle of stars

The Formation of Elements

In main sequence stars , hydrogen undergoes fusion to create helium only.

In red giants and red supergiants , the higher temperatures and pressures mean that helium undergoes fusion to create heavier elements and these undergo fusion and so on. This occurs until iron is created, as the temperature is not high enough to fuse together iron nuclei. 

In supernovae , temperatures and pressures are even greater and so iron and heavier element s undergo fusion. This is the only process in which heavier elements can be formed and therefore all elements in the universe that are heavier than iron  (including here on Earth) were made in a supernova . 

Life Cycle of a Star Example Questions

Question 1: Which type of force pulls gas and dust together to create a nebula? 

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Question 2: Describe how a nebula turns into a main sequence star. 

The nebula is compressed by gravity and becomes more hot and dense. It becomes a protostar .

Eventually, the gas and dust become so hot and dense that hydrogen undergoes fusion . It becomes a main sequence star.

Question 3: Explain why the outwards pressure from a main sequence star does not cause the star to explode?

There is a gravitational force caused by the mass of the star. 

This force balances out the outwards pressure . 

Question 4: Describe what happens to a main sequence star much bigger than the Sun after it runs out of hydrogen. 

The star expands and becomes hotter and heavier nuclei undergo fusion . 

The star becomes a red supergiant .

Eventually, the star becomes so big that it collapses in on itself in a massive explosion called a supernova .

The explosion ejects the outer layers of the star into space.

For smaller supergiants, what remains is a dense core called a neutron star .

If the red supergiant was large enough, a black hole will be formed.

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Life Cycle Of Stars: The Life Cycle Of A Star

The Life Cycle of Stars Stars go through tremendous things in the course of their life. In a star’s life they go through eight different phases. These phases can take many years to go through. When a star is made up it starts needing. Gas and dust in space to form what is called a nebula. Nebulae are the birthplace of stars. There are different types of nebulas one being an emission nebula. For example the Orion Nebula grows very brightly because of the gas that is in it which is energized by the stars that have formed inside of it (“Life of a Star ”). Another type of nebula is a reflection nebula this is when starlight reflects off the greens of dust that are in a nebula. The last type of nebula is a dark nebula, these are very dense clouds of molecular hydrogen that can either partially or completely absorbed light from stars. So by definition a star is a globe of gas that produces its heat and light by nuclear fusion. They are born from a nebulae and are made up of mostly hydrogen and helium gas. Surface temperature on a star can range from 2000°C all the way up to 30,000°C (“Life of a Star.”). The colors of a star can range from blue to red depending on the brightness of the star. The brighter star is the higher the …show more content…

When a star explodes it obtains the brightness of 100 million suns for a very short period of time. It is like a massive firework, it is apparently very pretty to see. There are two types of supernovas one being a type one and the other being a type two. A type one supernova occurs when gas from one star falls into a white dwarf which causes it to explode. Type ii supernova is when a star that is 10 times as big as the sun suffers internal reaction which ultimately results in the loss of its life. When a type ii supernova explodes can turn into neutron stars and black holes. Supernova is thought to have elements are heavier than hydrogen and helium in

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Stars: Building Blocks Of Galaxies

Stars are the most recognized astronomical object in space and they represent the building blocks of galaxies. Stars distribute elements such as: carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. A star develops from a cloud of hydrogen and helium, the dust clouds that are scattered throughout galaxies. An example of a dust cloud is the Orion Nebula. The gas and dust begin to collapse from its own gravitational pull. As the cloud collapses, the middle gets hotter. This is known as a prostar. A dense and hot core forms which begins to collect dust and gas. All this material may not end up as a part of the star but can become planets, asteroids, comets, or remain dust. A star about the size of our sun can up to 50 million years to mature. The smallest stars are

Main Sequence Stars Research Paper

Main sequence star types include,red dwarves,yellow dwarves,blue giants,red giants,red supergiants.Stars spend most of their lives

Science of Stars Paper

Another property of a star is temperature. By measuring the temperature of a star, scientists are able to tell how hot the star is. They use color to measure the temperature of stars. The red ones are the coolest (3,500 K), the yellow ones are warmer (5,000 to 7,000 K), the white ones are warmer still (9,000 to 15,000 K), and the blue ones are the hottest (20,000 to 50,000 K).

Star Life Cycle

Planetary nebula are formed in the outer core of the star that are vanished when the star of the Sun’s mass changes from a red giant to white dwarf. At this stage all the energy from the star fades away losing layers and forms a complex structure.

The Deaths Of Normal Stars

The deaths of normal stars give birth to neutron stars. Neutron Stars are products of the so called supernova. Supernovae transpire during the death of a highly developed star which occurs when there is not enough nuclear fuel to keep the pressure intact inside the core of a star (Gursky 1975). The aftermath of a supernova is crucial because it frees iron, carbon, copper, and oxygen along with other elements found in a star. This explosion completely demolishes the star and has the ability to transform into either a black hole or neutron star (Freddy 2006). These supernovae are extremely bright and every 200 years there is an explosion that happens to be big enough and bright enough to be seen from earth. Neutron stars are very significant within the universe. It is said that the neutron star was discovered before the before the neutron. It was Lev Landau who first wrote about and studied dense stars. He focused his research on the idea there were objects in the universe that were denser than but as small as white dwarfs and regular stars (Haensel 2007). This focus leads to the discovery of the fascinating and complicated neutron star. The end is only the beginning for neutron stars.

Star Life Cycle Research Paper

A star's life cycle is determined by its mass. The larger its mass, the shorter its life cycle. A star's mass is determined by the amount of matter that is available in its nebula, the giant cloud of gas and dust from which it was born. As the interstellar mass condenses and loses gravitational potential energy, the temperature rises and the material gains thermal energy which is known as protostar. It is now a main sequence star and will remain in this stage, shining for millions to billions of years to come. As in sequence star glows, hydrogen in a star’s core is converted into helium, the core begins to contract and heat up. The rapid release energy upsets the pressure-gravity force balance and causes the star to expand, cool down and enter

Omega Centauri: The Origin Of Globular Clusters

While the vast majority are of similar class to our sun and bright yellow and white in colour there are also signs of red giants reaching the end of their lives, as well as many small white dwarfs. Perhaps the more puzzling stars are the bright ‘blue stragglers’ (as depicted in the famous Hertzsprung-Russell diagram), as these stars should have expired long ago in explosions called supernova. It has been suggested by astronomers that these stars may be the merging occurring in such a crowded neighbourhood between lower mass

Are Black Holes The Same?

For smaller stars when the nuclear fuel is exhausted and there are no more nuclear reactions opposing gravity the repulsive forces among the electrons within the star eventually generate enough pressure to prevent further gravitational collapse. The star then starts to cool and “die peacefully” comparatively, this type of star is called a white dwarf. When a very massive star about fifteen times the mass of the Sun collapses after it has exhausted its nuclear fuel it explodes as a supernova (currently the largest explosions that are known to take place in space) eventually forming a black hole. [1.1][2]

Star Life Cycle Essay

The first stage in the life cycle of a star is the Nebula. A Nebula is a swirling sea of dust and gas but, it is not a star yet. Over time, the dust and gas will collect into a ball that sweeps through the Nebula. The ball of gas and dust then begins to grow.

Elements Of Stars Research Paper

Stars a balls of gas that are luminous meaning that they give off light. Star first start transition begins from clouds, a cold molecule of hydrogen that gravitationally collapse creating fragments into many pieces that slowly form in to individual stars. Stars are then held by their own gravity and is made of 75% hydrogen and 25% helium two of the elements in the periodic table. Hydrogen has the symbol of H and is the lightest and also simplest element in the periodic. Helium had the symbol He and had the lowest boiling point compared to the other elements in the periodic table. As time eclipse stars converts elements of hydrogen to helium that is why the ratio of the sum is 70% hydrogen and 29% helium.

Supernova In The Milky Way

The colors of violet, rose, blue, orange, mint green, yellow and many more, make it look like a painting. This nebula with a giant star at its center is known as SBW2007, located in the Carina Nebula. A supernova burns for only a short period of time, but it can tell scientists a lot about the universe. One kind of supernova has shown scientists that we live in an expanding universe, one that is growing at an ever increasing rate. Scientists also have determined that supernovae play a key role in distributing elements throughout the universe. When the star explodes, it shoots elements and debris into space. Many of the elements we find here on Earth are made in the core of stars. These elements travel on to form new stars, planets and everything else in the

Cycle Of Stars

Stars are born of gas and dust and have a life cycle based on their original mass. The sun produces energy and turns it into hydrogen into helium. Our sun is a bright yellow star and is made of mostly of hydrogen and helium. The size of the sun is a medium size star in the main sequence. The life cycle of a star is the low-mass (main sequence), medium-mass (giant,and white dwarf) , and High-mass ( supergiant, supernova, and black hole. There are three types of galaxies which are elliptical galaxies, spiral galaxies, and irregular galaxies. We classify stars by their size, color, temperature, and their luminosity. When a star dies it becomes a black hole until millions of years. The hottest star is the blue star the coldest star is the red star.

Solar Mass Helium Essay

The inner core has reached its final high density state and the nuclear burning surrounding it increases in intensity. The helium burning becomes unstable and the shell becomes sensitive to changes in temperature and high in pressure, causing explosive flashes. The star’s outermost layers begin to expand and contract as they heat and cool in response to the flashes. Once the star exhausts the remaining fuel at its core, ultraviolet radiation ionizes the surrounding cloud and the star. The result is a planetary nebula, which is a round or oval shape created by the escaping of expanding

Emission Nebulaes

The Milky Way contains billions of stars with different ages and sizes. One example of a star which is closest to earth is the Sun. Just like all the other stars the sun is a luminous ball of gas which mostly contains hydrogen and helium and is held together with its own gravity. All the stars produce their own energy by a process called nuclear fusion. Stars life begins in the place what astronomers call the Nebulae. A nebula is enormous cloud consisting of dust and gas; mainly hydrogen and helium. There are three different types of nebulae. The first one is Emission Nebula. Emission Nebulae are usually red and pink in colour because they are filled with hydrogen gas. The Emission Nebula is very hot because of the newborn stars zap there surrounding

Stars and Nuclear Fusion Essay

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.

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essay on life cycle of stars

Stellar Odyssey: A Journey Through The life Cycle Of Stars

Diving deep on the the life cycle of the stars with our amazing writer reefal aljuhani.

essay on life cycle of stars

Stars initiate their existence within expansive clouds of dust and gas known as stellar nebulae, situated in the vast expanses between stars. These nebulae, dynamic and visually captivating, give rise to celestial wonders like the Butterfly Nebula, the Bubble Nebula, the Cat's Eye Nebula, and the Human Eye Nebula. Despite their distinct appearances, they share common elements: space dust, hydrogen, helium, and plasma.

essay on life cycle of stars

The mass harbored within these nebulae serves as a pivotal factor in determining the type of star that is born. This mass significantly influences the entire lifecycle of the star, impacting the moment it will eventually fade away. Moreover, the potential for a star to transform into a black hole hinge on its mass.

The interconnection among these celestial elements follows a fascinatingly straightforward trajectory. If stars commence their cosmic journey with substantial mass, they shine brightly but undergo a relatively shorter lifespan. Conversely, a star beginning with a smaller mass, potentially not even reaching the main sequence, endures for a more extended period. The cosmic narrative takes an even more captivating turn when a massive star collapses, potentially leading to the birth of a black hole or a neutron star. This phenomenon occurs as a black hole forms from a colossal mass collapsing into its core, and a neutron star emerges through a comparable process.

Transitioning to the concept of main sequence stars, these are stars actively fusing hydrogen into helium within their cores. These nuclear fusions occur deep within the stellar cores, constituting about 90% of a star's lifespan. Noteworthy main sequence stars include our sun, which is approximately 5,000 million years into its 10,000-million-year main sequence phase, as well as Sirius and Alpha Centauri A and B.

Although these stars are some of the brightest in our view, they lack the mass to be categorized as giants, supergiants, or hypergiants. Imagining the mass of these colossal stars, consider multiplying the sun's mass by a thousand and it still wouldn't match the scale of the five largest stars. UY Scuti, a hypergiant star located around 9,500 light-years away near the center of the Milky Way, takes the crown as one of the largest stars in our galaxy if you are unable to imagine the distance remember how fast light is than think that something these fast needs 9.500 years to go their This celestial voyage through the cosmos underscores the immense scale and wonders that unfold in the limitless expanse of the universe, inviting us to marvel at the cosmic.

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ROSES-2024 Amendment 1: A.47 Earth Action: Wildland Fires Final Text and Due Dates.

ROSES-2024 A.47 Earth Action: Wildland Fires solicits proposals for innovative solutions that leverage Earth observations to support some aspect of wildland fire management and related decision making in a sustained manner. Proposals submitted to this program element may address activities within individual phases of the fire life cycle (pre-, active, or post-fire) or span multiple phases. Projects should be focused on and framed around problems and challenges faced by one or more of the partners.

This program is participating in the Inclusion Plan Pilot Program, see Section 4.4. Proposers must provide letters from their partner organizations identified as benefitting from and/or co-developing tools as part of the project, see Section 4.6.

ROSES-2024 Amendment 1 releases final text and due dates for A.47 Earth Action: Wildland Fires , which had been listed as "TBD". Notices of intent are requested by April 8, 2024, and proposals are due May 24, 2024.

On or about February 23, 2024, this Amendment to the NASA Research Announcement "Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES) 2023" (NNH24ZDA001N) will be posted on the NASA research opportunity homepage at https://solicitation.nasaprs.com/ROSES2024 and will appear on SARA's ROSES blog at: https://science.nasa.gov/researchers/solicitations/roses-2024/

Questions concerning A.47 Earth Action: Wildland Fires , may be directed to Mike Falkowski at [email protected] .

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