The Life Cycle of Stars

By Jake Bennett-Woolf

In the Beginning
there is hydrogen gas. This hydrogen comes together to form a protostar. These protostars start off with the same mass as they will have, but are a lot larger then what they will become, and not very hot. As the protostar shrinks, it gets hotter and hotter.

The First Division

If the protostar had a mass of less then 8 Jupiters (1.51896 10^28 kg), then the protostar does not overcome the energy barrier for nuclear fusion and it never becomes a real Star. It becomes a brown dwarf. All of the rest of the protostars that have a mass larger then 8 Jupiters become Stars.

Nuclear Fusion
Nuclear Fusion is the process of combining two or more nuclei into a single heavier nucleus. In Stars, nuclear fusion always converts one element to its next highest element. Stars start off made up of hydrogen gas (as said earlier) and spend most of their lifetimes converting hydrogen to helium.

Nuclear Fusion (Technical)

Two Hydrogen atoms get fused together by the intense heat inside the Sun. This fusion makes Deuterium, an isotope of Hydrogen, a positron and a neutrino. A Deuterium and a Hydrogen atom fuse to make Helium3 and a Gamma Ray. Two Helium-3 atoms fuse together to make one Helium and two Hydrogen's, thus starting the reaction again. The light we see from Stars is the Gamma Ray, so us being able to see Stars is only a small by-product of Nuclear Fusion

The Main Sequence (The Boring Bit)

Stars then spend most of their lifetime in the Main Sequence, they act stable and carry on fusing hydrogen into helium. The lifetime of a Star depends on its mass, our Sun, a middle sized Star, has a lifetime of about 12 billion years while an extremely large hot Star can have a lifetime of just a few million years.

Leaving the Main Sequence

Once a Star has used up all of its available Hydrogen, it leaves the Main Sequence. As its source of energy thus far has been depleted, it starts fusing the helium (the helium came from the hydrogen fusing.) When the Star starts fusing Helium, there is a Helium flash which is literally a flash. The Star keeps fusing helium which results in lithium (the next heaviest element). When the helium is all used up, it fuses the lithium, and so on. This causes the inside of the Star to shrink, while the outside expands, making a Red Giant.

The Second Divide (Small)

For Stars that have less then 1.4 times the mass of the Sun, the expanded layer outside gets thrown off, turning into a planetary nebula. Eventually, inside the Star, all nuclear reactions stop and it becomes a White Dwarf. All that the White Dwarf has to do is slowly lose energy and then finally turn into a Black Dwarf.

The Second Divide (Large)

If the Star has more then 1.4 solar masses, it keeps on fusing elements together until it reaches Iron, because until Iron, all of the fusions give out heat, while Iron absorbs heat. This causes a sudden stop in fusion and creates a massive implosion, which rebounds and then explodes. These explosions are called Type II Supernovae.

The Third Divide (Small)

If the Star has more then 1.4 solar masses but less then 8 solar masses, after the Supernova, the core of the Star collapses into a super dense object called a Neutron Star. Neutron Stars are made up solely of Neutrons (hence the name) because any protons and electrons got fused together in the intense pressure. Neutron Stars have a very powerful magnetic field and spin around extremely rapidly. It sends out radio pulses in two directions, thus they were also given the name Pulsars.

The Third Division (Large)

If the Star is larger then 8 solar masses, then the core of the Star collapses into a Neutron Star and then keeps on collapsing until its escape velocity exceeds the speed of light. It then becomes a Black Hole. Because Black Holes escape velocity is higher then the speed of light, nothing can escape it (as light is the fastest thing that we know of). A Black Hole collects up material which it is going to suck in, and it orbits the Black Hole. This is called an Accretion Disk. The boundary between where light can and cannot escape is called the Event Horizon. So, if you go past the Event Horizon, you can never return.