The Lifecycle of a Star

The length of the hydrogen burning stage depends on the stars weight. A star with 15 times the weight of the sun uses up all its hydrogen in less than 10 million years. (Darling D., 1985) The farthest star in the most distant galaxy is more than ten billion light years away. The kind of star a star becomes depends on how much gas and dust the protostar manages to pack into itself as it forms. The more mass a star collects the hotter and brighter it becomes.

To elaborate, both low and high-mass stars become a protostar after gravity gradually forces the hydrogen gas that is available in their nebula together and begins to spin. (NASA, 2013). This spinning eventually causes the temperature of the protostars to reach 10 million K (or 15,000,000 degrees Celsius) whereby the protostar becomes hot enough for hydrogen fusion to operate efficiently. Both low and high-mass protostars then become main-sequence stars as the hydrogen fusion holds their gravitational contractions in stasis and they become stable. In this state, they glow and burn hydrogen in their core, converting it into helium through nuclear fusion.

The supernova then can become either a neutron star or a black hole. The life of stars is one of the most complex yet majestic processes the universe can display.

The stars' fuel for energy generation is the stuff they are made of --hydrogen, helium, carbon, etc. -- which they burn by converting these elements into heavier elements. Nuclear fusion occurs, which is when the nuclei of atoms fuse into nuclei of heavier atoms. The energy given off by a star through nuclear burning heatsits interior to many millions and, even in some cases to Pleiades Star Cluster hundreds of millions to billions of degrees Fahrenheit. It causes heat to flow from the interior toward the surface, where it is released out into space and makes the star shine.

This energy (radiation) production prevents further contraction of the star. Young stars emit jets of intense radiation that heat the surrounding matter to the point at which it glows brightly. These narrowly-focused jets can be trillions of miles long and can travel at 500,000 miles per hour. These jets may be focused by the star's magnetic field. The protostar is now a stable main sequence star which will remain in this state for about 10 billion years.

Jupiter Research Jupiter is the fifth and largest planet in our solar system. This gas giant has a thick atmosphere, 17 moons, and a dark, barely-visible ring. Its most prominent features are bands across its latitudes and a great red spot, (which is a storm). Jupiter is composed mostly of gas. This enormous planet radiates twice as much heat as it absorbs from the sun.

The life of a star begins in a nebula, a great collection of gas and dust. Once enough mass has accumulated into a single object, gravity forces the mass to collapse into the center. Due to pressure and friction, the core gets so hot that it begins nuclear fusion and a protostar is made. The age and the mass of stars tell every thing about a stars physical properties and placement into each of the categories. The Hertzsprung - Russell diagram (HR Diagram) graphs stars luminosities over the stars spectral class.

Neutron stars are just big equations in a scientist or astronomer eyes. Main sequence stars are stars that are fusing hydrogen atoms to form helium atoms in their cores. Most of the stars in the universe are known to be a main sequence star, which is 90% of stars in the universe. The sun is a main sequence star, which not too many people know.

The life cycle of a star is dependent on its mass. The larger the mass, the quicker it will die out, whereas stars which are no more than half the size of our Sun can live up to hundreds of billion years. However no matter how large the star is, they all begin their lives in a nursery known as a molecular cloud. A molecular cloud is a giant condensation of dust and molecular gas. They are regions of relatively dense interstellar gas and dust with hydrogen molecules as well as carbon and silicate materials forming the primary constituents.

Super massive black holes are enormous black holes which have a mass equivalent to large numbers of solar masses. A black hole is called a super massive black hole when a normal "galactic nuclei black hole" has a mass range between 0.1 million to 10 million solar masses. (Cardiff University 2014). It is believed that one solar mass is equal the mass of the sun, so that would make a super-massive black hole very large compared to the sun. Super-massive black holes having a large mass would make its gravity incredibly limitless, this would mean that even a star which is many light years away would be impelled by the super-massive black hole.