How long does it take a falling star to fall?

Answer 1

The initial explosion is over in seconds.

The remnant of the supernova explosion consists of a compact star and a rapidly expanding shock wave of material. This cloud sweeps up the surrounding interstellar medium during a free expansion phase, which can last for up to two centuries.

The wave then gradually undergoes a period of heat transfer, and will slowly cool and mix with the surrounding interstellar medium over a period of about 10,000 years

Answer 2

Most stars can shine for several billion years. Our sun is about 4.5 billion years old and will probably keep shining for another 4 or 5 billion years. The oldest stars that we can see are not really stars but galaxies. Some of these are so far away that we see them as they were over 10 billion years ago.

Answer 3

Any particular one?

The lifetime of stars varies considerably, with low-mass stars tending to have longer lives than high-mass stars. The Sun, a well-above-average star by mass, is expected to have a lifetime of about 10 billion years as a main-sequence star. (It's currently about "middle-aged", at an estimated 4.5 billion years old.)

So, any given star could last as few as a few tens of millions of years, or as long as tens or even hundreds of billions of years.

However, even with these long lifetimes, there are a LOT of stars; several hundred billion in the Milky Way alone. In any given year, there are several supernovae visible (at least through a telescope), most of them in other galaxies.

The best candidate nearby for an explosion "soon" that I know of is Betelgeuse, which is only about 10 million years old, but as a very high mass star is already on its last legs (it's left the main sequence and is now an extremely large, extremely diffuse red giant). However, that's "soon" in cosmological time; it might not happen for another million years or so.

Answer 4

A star can continue producing energy anywhere between a few million years, and several trillions of years; depending on the star's mass. More massive stars are hotter, burn their fuel faster, and therefore have a relatively short lifetime.

Answer 5

a star exists for different length of time and it depends how big it is and how small it is.

Answer 6

The actual explosion is over in seconds - the after effects last for millions of years.

Answer 7

The life span of a star depends upon how big it is. The larger the star, the shorter its lifespan.

Answer 8

The collapse to a white dwarf takes place over tens of thousands of years, while the star blows off its outer envelope to form a planetary nebula

Answer 9

The same amount of time as the distance in light years.

Answer 10

it takes billions of years for a star to form