Unit 6 Project
Kuvakäsikirjoitus Teksti
- Stage 1: The Molecular Cloud
- Stage 4: Expansion to Red Giant
- A star begins its lifecycle as a giant cloud of gas. Stars form inside molecular clouds. Due to extremely high temperature, these atoms bond together forming molecules. When born, they are placed onto the main sequence on the H-R Diagram(The straight line).
- Stage 2: The T-Tauri Phase
- A new star begins to produce strong winds, which push away the surrounding molecules. As such, the young star becomes visible.
- Stage 3: Main Sequence Stars
- Stage 6: Death
- The young star reaches hydrostatic equilibrium, its gravity is balanced by its outward pressure, making a solid shape. As such, the star then becomes a main sequence star. It spends most of its life in this stage, fusions its hydrogen core. After the star fuses all of its hydrogen core, it is no longer in the main sequence and transitions to a red giant.
- After all of the hydrogen core of the star is converted to helium, the core collapses in on itself, and as such the star expands. As it does so, it becomes a sub-giant star, and next a red giant. Red giant stars have cooler surfaces than main sequence stars. Because of this, they appear red rather than yellow(due to position on EM spectrum). On the H-R Diagram the oldest stars on the main sequence fall off and start to get bigger. losing the temperature that they had on the main sequence.
- As the star grows the star begins fusion of the helium molecules in its core, preventing the core from collapsing. Once this ends, the core shrinks, and the star begins fusing carbon. This continues until iron begins appearing in the core. Iron fusion absorbs energy, leaving the star in a state to collapse. Large enough stars create supernova explosions.
- Stage 5: Heavier Elements Fuse
- The death of the star causes a stellar explosion. The supernova explosion being the biggest.
Yli 30 miljoonaa kuvakäsikirjoitusta luotu