Well, it's like bringing colors to the canvas – the helium flash happens in a star's core when helium fuses into carbon and releases a sudden surge of energy, causing the core to expand. This expansion is all part of the star's natural process towards a more stable phase, much like adding layers to create a beautiful and harmonious painting. Remember, nature always finds its way to balance and beauty.
The helium flash in stars of solar masses typically lasts only a few hours to a few days. During this short-lived event, helium is rapidly converted into carbon and oxygen in the star's core, leading to a release of a significant amount of energy.
The helium flash occurs during the evolution of a star when the core of the star reaches a high enough temperature for helium fusion to begin, typically after the star has exhausted its hydrogen fuel in the core.
Well, happy little clouds! The helium flash occurs in stars when helium accumulates in the core and reaches a critical temperature where nuclear fusion suddenly ignites, creating a burst of energy. Just like a beautiful sunrise painting, this process helps our stars to continue shining bright and bringing light to the universe. Every bit of knowledge we gain about these cosmic wonders helps us appreciate the beauty of the stars even more.
This phenomenon happen during the red phase collapse of smaller stars. The contraction in the core of the star causes the helium to go into a runaway fusion reaction that releases an immense amount of energy for a brief time.
During the red giant phase, hydrogen fusion occurs in the shell surrounding the helium core. The core is no longer fusing hydrogen, as it has already converted most of its hydrogen into helium. This causes the outer layers of the star to expand and cool, leading to the red giant phase.
A helium flash occurs because the core of the star is in what is known as a "degenerate" state. This means that the core has contracted so much that the pressure of the electron shells of the atoms making up the core prevent the core from contracting further. Under normal gas conditions (i.e. NOT a degenerate state), an increase in the temperature of the core would cause an increase in core pressure resulting in the core expanding and the temperature then dropping. This state is known as hydrostatic equilibrium. With a degenerate core, the temperature increases but the pressure doesn't. This extra energy ignites the helium creating run-away nuclear reactions. This is what is referred to as a "helium flash."
The luminosity of a low mass star goes down after helium flash. The sudden onset of helium fusion stops core shrinkage and the low-mass star will become smaller, and less luminous than it was as a red giant.
The helium flash converts helium nuclei into carbon nuclei through the fusion process in the core of a star. This process occurs in stars with a mass greater than about 0.8 times the mass of the Sun during the later stages of helium burning. The intense energy released during the helium flash helps stabilize the star against gravitational collapse.
A helium flash occurs in low-mass stars during the helium burning phase. High-mass stars do not experience a helium flash because they have a higher core temperature and pressure, so helium burning begins smoothly without the need for a sudden ignition event. Additionally, high-mass stars have higher energy production rates, which prevent the conditions required for a helium flash from occurring.
The helium flash in stars of solar masses typically lasts only a few hours to a few days. During this short-lived event, helium is rapidly converted into carbon and oxygen in the star's core, leading to a release of a significant amount of energy.
The helium flash occurs during the evolution of a star when the core of the star reaches a high enough temperature for helium fusion to begin, typically after the star has exhausted its hydrogen fuel in the core.
Well, happy little clouds! The helium flash occurs in stars when helium accumulates in the core and reaches a critical temperature where nuclear fusion suddenly ignites, creating a burst of energy. Just like a beautiful sunrise painting, this process helps our stars to continue shining bright and bringing light to the universe. Every bit of knowledge we gain about these cosmic wonders helps us appreciate the beauty of the stars even more.
The star losses its fuel and in helium in the core starts to turn into iron atoms making it expand with an violent explosion
Main Sequence - star is stable because of Hydrostatic Equilibrium. Fusing Hydrogen to Helium in core. Stars spends about 90% lifetime as main sequence.This is were I found the answer - http://www.maa.mhn.de/Scholar/star_evol.html
As a G-type star fuses its hydrogen to helium, this helium will gather in the core. As a result, the core will contract under its own weight as hydrogen is being spent. The contraction causes an increased hydrogen fusion rate, increasing the temperature. When insufficient hydrogen remains in the core, the layers above are no longer supported by the outward pressure of radiation, and collapse on top of the core, causing it to contract further, and also initiating hydrogen fusion outside the core. At this point, the star leaves the main sequence, and becomes a red giant. At this stage, the core of the giant may reach critical density for helium fusion to initiate. Since the core is composed of mostly degenerate matter at this stage, there is no regulation of the fusion rate. Also, degenerate matter is less opaque to the energies produced than non-degenerate matter, so conducts them better.Ehr, to summarize: the helium flash occurs during the red giant stage of G-type stars.
This phenomenon happen during the red phase collapse of smaller stars. The contraction in the core of the star causes the helium to go into a runaway fusion reaction that releases an immense amount of energy for a brief time.
This phenomenon happen during the red phase collapse of smaller stars. The contraction in the core of the star causes the helium to go into a runaway fusion reaction that releases an immense amount of energy for a brief time.