The General life cycle of a small-mass star: Small-mass stars have a longer life than high-mass stars as the small-mass stars need less fuel, due to the fact that their surface area is smaller The life of a start begins from a Nebula, a giant cloud of gas and dust. In the Nebula are mainly two gasses, hydrogen and helium. The gasses are pulled in by gravity and it starts to spin. As the as spins faster the temperature raises and the star becomes a Protostar. After this stage of its life the star becomes stable. This stage is known as Main Sequence Star. This is what our sun is in now. The star spends most of its life, millions to billions of years, at this stage, burning fuels. Once it has ran out of fuel it becomes a Red Giant. In this stage the star's outer shell expands and becomes huge but the core contracts. Next the outer bit of the star is expelled leaving just the core. This stage is called White dwarf. This stage last until the star goes out and it is at the last stage Black dwarf. * To find out more information on the individual stages please click on the pink terms.  |
The General life cycle of a high-mass star: High-mass stars have a shorter life than the small-mass stars. They use their fuel up quicker as they have a larger surface area, thus needing more fuel to light itself up. At the beging of the star's life, the hing-mass star goes through the same process and stages as the small-mass stars. It starts with the Nebula stage then moves to the Protostar stage, the Main Sequence Star stage and finally becomes a Red giant. However, after these stages, the process differs from the low- mass stars. After the Red Gaint stage, the High-mass star goes through Supernova explosion. The material from the outer shell is blown into space. After the Supernova the core of the star can either become a Black hole or a Neutron star.
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