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Gravitational collapse of a massive star, resulting in a Type II supernova. Gravitational collapse is the contraction of an astronomical object due to the influence of its own gravity, which tends to draw matter inward toward the center of gravity. [1] Gravitational collapse is a fundamental mechanism for structure formation in the universe.
Artist's impression of a stellar-mass black hole (left) in the spiral galaxy NGC 300; it is associated with a Wolf–Rayet star. A stellar black hole (or stellar-mass black hole) is a black hole formed by the gravitational collapse of a star. [1] They have masses ranging from about 5 to several tens of solar masses. [2]
Simulated collision of two neutron stars. A stellar collision is the coming together of two stars [1] caused by stellar dynamics within a star cluster, or by the orbital decay of a binary star due to stellar mass loss or gravitational radiation, or by other mechanisms not yet well understood.
Highly massive stars (with 25 or more times the mass of the Sun) can lose up to 10 −5 solar masses (M ☉) each year—the equivalent of 1 M ☉ every 100,000 years. [ 8 ] Type Ib and Ic supernovae are hypothesized to have been produced by core collapse of massive stars that have lost their outer layer of hydrogen and helium, either via winds ...
The Nobel Prize-winning event, [6] known as SN 1987A, was the collapse of a blue supergiant star Sanduleak -69° 202, in the Large Magellanic Cloud outside our Galaxy, 51 kpc away. [18] About 10 58 lightweight weakly-interacting neutrinos were produced, carrying away almost all of the energy of the supernova. [ 19 ]
A different reaction mechanism, photodisintegration, follows the initial pair-instability collapse in stars of at least 250 solar masses. This endothermic (energy-absorbing) reaction absorbs the excess energy from the earlier stages before the runaway fusion can cause a hypernova explosion; the star then collapses completely into a black hole. [5]
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A star with a core mass slightly below this level — in the range of 5–15 M ☉ — will undergo a supernova explosion, but so much of the ejected mass falls back onto the core remnant that it still collapses into a black hole. If such a star is rotating slowly, then it will produce a faint supernova, but if the star is rotating quickly ...