Lives of Stars for Website

Life of Stars Nebula- a large cloud of gas and dust spread out in an immense volume. A star on the other hand is made of a large amount of gas in a small volume. How does a star form from a cloud of gas? Gravity pulls gas and dust into a dense ball eventually triggering nuclear fusion. The life of a star depends on its mass. -Stars with less mass than the sun burn their fuel slowly and can live up to 200 billion years. Medium sized stars can live up to 10 billion years.

The Death of Stars What happens to a star the begins to run out of fuel? The core shrinks, and the outer portion expands. What happens when it completely runs out of fuel? The star becomes a white dwarf, a neutron star or a black hole. White Dwarfs Planetary Nebula- The outer parts of a dying star drifting into outer space forming a glowing cloud of gas White dwarf- the core of a dying star the size of Earth with as much mass as the sun. (1 spoonful has as much mass as a large truck. Supernova When a high mass star begins to die it turns into a supergiant. When a supergiant runs out of fuel it can suddenly explode. This explosion is called a super nova.

White dwarf compared to Earth

Neutron Star Describe a neutron star: neutron stars are the remains of high mass stars. Smaller and denser than white dwarfs. They can contain as much as three times the mass of the sun but only 25 km in diameter! -A spinning neutron star is called a pulsar.

Black Holes What is a black hole? A black hole is an object with gravity so strong nothing, not even light can escape it. How can astronomers detect black holes if they cannot see them? They use indirect evidence like gas near a black hole that spins faster and faster. They can also detect heat and X-rays coming from it.

Life and Death of a Star

Wow! A single sugar cube sized amount of white dwarf would weigh about 1 ton. A white dwarf was once the size of the sun, but has been squeezed down to the size of the Earth. A white dwarf has burned off all its fuel and only carbon remains.

Wow continued Neutron stars A neutron star is about 20 km in diameter and has the mass of about 1.4 times that of our Sun.mass This means that a neutron star is so dense that on Earth, one teaspoonful would weigh a billion tons!dense

How does gravity in space keep objects in orbit?

We are made of stars! Once helium runs out, the nuclei of carbon, oxygen, and other elements begin to fuse. Since the heaviest element created in a star by nuclear fusion reactions is iron, a large iron core eventually forms at the center of everything. At this point, gravity becomes overwhelming, the core collapses, and an explosion occurs (supernova), during which outer layers of gas and heavy elements are ejected to space.