The Life of a Star

869 Words2 Pages

In the endless expanse of intergalactic space, stars are in every stage of being born, radiating huge amounts of energy, transforming and dying. When one finds out more about how stars are formed, what they are made of, and how they die one cannot help but to be awed by the complex processes and vast transformations that take place in the lifecycle of a star. A star's life begins in a nebula, which is an interstellar cloud made up of dust, hydrogen and helium gas, and plasma. Nebulas have been called "Stellar nurseries" because they contain just the right conditions and materials for the formation of a star. These clouds are sometimes disturbed by turbulence caused by gravity from nearby phenomenon like asteroids or supernovae. This turbulence creates instabilities in the spin of the cloud and cause clumps of denser matter to begin to form. Three-dimensional computer models of star formation predict that the spinning clouds of collapsing gas and dust may break up into two or three blobs (NASA). Gravity then makes these clumps of matter contract into a large mass where increased density and pressure create heat. This hot dense core of matter is known as a protostar. A star spends most of its life as what is called a main sequence star. Our sun is currently a main sequence star that has a mass of about 1030 kg, or about 333,000 times the mass of the earth (swin). This mass is often used as a convenient unit for expressing the mass of other stars and is called one solar mass. A star like our sun takes about 50 million years to become a main sequence star, and it finally reaches that stage when the temperatures in the protostar reach roughly seven million degrees kelvin. At this critical temperature, Hydrogen begin... ... middle of paper ... ...ms a disk that is heated to enormous temperatures and emits large amounts of x-ray and gamma-ray radiation. This radiation can tell the scientists that there is a black hole at the center of the disk. This essay has provided some small glimpses into the fascinating world of stellar astronomy and stellar evolution. It has shown how a star is born and what its existence is like as a main sequence star. It has explored some of the most common final transformations and the resulting stellar remnants. This essay has also presented insight into a variety of the nuclear fusion reactions that take place as stars die and given the reader information about how long stars exist in various states. As one learns more about the lifecycle of stars, one cannot help but to be awed by the vast transformations and complex internal reactions that take place during their existence.

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