Describe the stages in the life of a star of 1 solar mass and in the life of star of 20 solar masses?

Answer 1

A star of one solar mass starts with hydrogen in the core that with eventually run out and form helium. Helium then forms carbon and oxygen and expands. A one solar mass star will live a long life and becomes a white dwarf that slowly cools and dims. Larger 20 solar mass stars live shorter lives. The carbon turns to neon, then silicon and finally to iron before it explodes.

Answer 2

That's a good question. Average star would fall in the center of the main sequence in the Herzsprung Russell diagram. I believe about eight billion years. Stellar evolution is determined solely by size of a star. The larger a star the shorter and more violent the life. I remember frontiers of astronomy Fred Hoyle theorizing 1.41 solar masses Being the tipping point of the path of evolution. A large star may only have a life of perhaps a million years

Answer 3

-average size

-expands and becomes a red giant

-cools and contracts, becomes a white dwarf star

-massive sized stars

-swell and become red supergiants

-explode (called a supernova)

-become a black hole

-become a neutron star

Answer 4

It forms, (gives life), collapses and turns to a neutron star.

A neutron star is under such force that it weighs the same as it did before it collapsed, not sure about the weight thing though, but it weighs a lot more than it looks.

A neutron start is 10-20 miles across and a tea spoon of neutron star weighs more than the weight of all the cars of the Earth conbined!

Answer 5

All stars form the same way. Gravity eventually pulls in the material from the nebula in which the star forms. When these materials come together, they cause rotation. Rotation causes heat, which leads to the glowing we see. Eventually the inner material cools down, compresses, and nuclear fusion starts, forming new elements. This is known as the Red Giant phase. The more massive the star, the shorter the life. Supermassive stars eventually explode into supernovas, until eventually the remnants form a black hole.

Answer 6

Protostar

The size of a star is determined by how much matter is available in its parent nebula.

Main Sequence

When the protostar is sufficiently hot and dense, the process of hydrogen fusion begins taking place in its core.

Red Giant

When the star's core runs out of hydrogen, gravity has its way once more that is.

Supernova

Nuclear reactions cease forever when the star's core is reduced to iron; that element will not fuse without additional energy supplies.

Neutron Star

Meanwhile, what's left of the star has shrunk to a diameter no larger than a few kilometers about the size of a city. At this density, the outward pressure generated by protons and neutrons reacting to compression is finally sufficient to halt gravity. The star is so dense that, if you could bring a teaspoon of its material to Earth, it would weigh a trillion tons.

Answer 7

Low Mass Stars - Protostar > Main Sequence > White Dwarf

(Low Mass Stars has about 80 Billions Years of Cycle only for 0.001 metal stars)

Medium Stars - Protostar > Main Sequence > Hertzsprung Gap > Giant Branch (Red Giant) > Core Helium Burning > First Asymptotic Branch > Second Asymptotic Branch > White Dwarf

(the medium Star is a sun like star with 11 billion years of cycle)

Answer 8

The smaller the star, the cooler it burns and the longer it lives. Very small "brown dwarf" stars may have life expectancies longer that the universe itself.

"Average" stars (and we're not sure how big "average" stars are, because we cannot see most of the small, dim ones!) like the Sun may last for 9-10 billion years.

Massive stars "live fast and die young"; a star like Betelgeuse (the red supergiant star at the shoulder of Orion the Hunter) is probably only a few million years old, and will likely die spectacularly in a supernova explosion within another few thousand years or so. It could happen any time!

Answer 9

eventually expand into a red giant, and then collapse into a white dwarf with a planetary nebula

Answer 10

It depends on the star. The bigger the star, the less life it has.