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Life Cycle of a Star. Credit: NASA. Nuclear reactions at the centre (or core) of a star provides energy which makes it shine brightly. This stage is called the ' main sequence '. The exact lifetime of a star depends very much on its size. Very massive stars use up their fuel quickly.
Life Cycle of Stars. Stellar Evolution. Main-sequence stars are fusing hydrogen into helium. These nuclear fusion take place deep in the cores of stars. Stars spend about 90% of their lives in this stage. Our Sun is about 5,000 million years into its 10,000 million-year main-sequence.
Stars are grouped into 7 main categories (also called, classes). These were created by astronomer Annie Jump Cannon . The classes are called O, B, A, F, G, K and M. Stars in the 'O' class are the most massive and hottest, stars in the 'M' class are the smallest and coolest.
Order the Stages of a Star. During their lives, stars undergo massive changes. What happens to them depends on how much mass they contain. Can you put the stages that a low mass star and a high mass star will go through in the correct order on the diagram? Approx Duration: < 15 mins. Have a go!
Stars come in lots of different sizes and colours. These differences can tell us a lot about what type of star they are. Stars shine for many millions of years but do not last for ever. After forming, they go through several stages which we call the life cycle of a star.
A white dwarf is a bright, hot, compact star. They are about the same size, in terms of volume, as the Earth. However, they contain about as much mass as the Sun. Because of their small radius, they are very faint. A typical white dwarf shines with only 0.1 - 1 % of the brightness of the Sun.
The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram shows the relationship between a star's temperature and its luminosity. It is also often called the H-R diagram or colour-magnitude diagram. It is a very useful graph because it can be used to chart the life cycle of a star.
During their lives, stars undergo massive changes. What happens to them depends on how much mass they contain. Can you put the stages that a low mass star and a high mass star will go through in the correct order on the diagram?
Stars form in huge clouds of gas and dust called nebulae. These areas of space are sometimes known as 'stellar nurseries' or 'star forming regions'. The gravity of the gas and dust in the clouds pulls everything inwards. The clouds slowly collapse onto a number of points (or cores).
Star Sizes. Our Sun is more than 1.4 million km across. But stars are not all the same size. They range from the size of a city, to large enough to swallow half our Solar System! Neutron stars pack a lot of mass into a small volume.