What is the word for the earliest stage of a star's life?

Answer 1

first it is a nebula, a large cloud of gas and dust that is spread out in an immense volume. After it forms a protostar, which is a large cloud of gas and dust with enough mass to form a star. Then it matters what is that star's mass. it could be a high mass star or a small or medium mass star like our sun.

Answer 2

A nebula is an interstellar cloud of hydrogen, helium, plasma and dust.

A star is a collection of matter, mostly hydrogen gas compressed to incredible pressure and heat by gravity.

See related questions.

Answer 3

A Protostar is what is at the centre of the large gas/dust ball, which is pulling together and heating up under its own gravity. These then go on to form Early stars.

Early stars of less than 2 solar masses are called 'T Tauri stars', while those with greater mass are 'Herbig Ae/Be stars'.

These early stars have temperatures which are too low for hydrogen fusion. They are powered instead by gravitational energy released as the stars continue to contract and eventually temperatures will become hot enough to sustain hydrogen fusion.

Answer 4

There are a few categorises of small stars

Main sequence stars, this includes our sun which is classed as a yellow dwarf star

Sub dwarf - A brown sub dwarf which should not be confused with a brown dwarf ....

The smallest stars are the white dwarf stars these include Brown Dwarf Star, which is a star that has to little mass for the core to create nuclear fusion ...

but the most fascinating stars of the white dwarfs class are the white dwarfs and the neutron stars which are embers of a dead star....

Answer 5

No. Nebula may emit infrared radiation, but generally only reflect visible light from foreground stars. Many nebula are actually quite dark, having no foreground stars in their vicinity to light them up.

Answer 6

All stars above tenth magnitude or so already have names. Admittedly they're not very interesting names, being things like HD321298. In the unlikely event someone needs to refer to a star which does not already have a name, they generally make something up based on the reason it's interesting. For example, the "Pistol Star", which can't be seen in visible light even with a telescope, is called that because it's near (and the source of illumination for) the Pistol Nebula. If you're asking about supernovae, they get named by year of discovery (possibly) followed by a letter, such as "SN 1054" or "SN 1987A".

Answer 7

No. Nebula generally do not shine with their own light, but instead reflect the light of foreground stars. Nebula are vast clouds of primarily interstellar hydrogen which may condense to form stars.

Answer 8

A nebula is a cloud of diffuse gas and dust which produces no visible light of its own.

A star is a dense, compact body with a core which is undergoing processes of nuclear fusion and therefore emitting visible light.

Stars are made of nebular material and when stars die they contribute material back to the interstellar nebulae.

Answer 9

This is true. A nebula is a very large cloud of gas and dust, mainly hydrogen. It slowly comes together over many years under it's own gravity, most of it towards the centre. As it does so, it spins. At the centre, enough mass builds up to give enough pressure and temperature at the core to allow fusion reactions to begin. This it then the birth of a new star.

Answer 10

Most, but not all. Some nebulas are simply clouds of gas and dust. If the nebula is big enough and dense enough, we can expect that stars will form there, so if there is a big dense nebula without stars, there's a good chance that over the next few million years a star will form there.