Star Life Cycles - Sun-sized Stars

Stars and Nebulae

Index

Interstellar Clouds
Classes of Objects
Gas Giant Planets
Brown Dwarfs
Red Dwarfs
Sun-sized Stars
Large Stars
The Largest Stars
Impossible Stars
Star Clusters
Planetary Systems
Rocky Planets
An Endless Cycle


Questions
Credits
Links

Michael Gallagher
August 2002
July 2007

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If the gas supply is sufficiently large, a sun-sized star forms. A sun-sized star supports nuclear fusion at a steady rate for billions of years. When all fusible hydrogen is exhausted, fusion of other elements begins, causing the star to expand into a Red Giant. As the supply of fusible elements is exhausted, the tenuous outer atmospheres drifts off into surrounding space to form a cloud of dust and gas called a Planetary Nebula. When all nuclear burning ceases, all that remains of the star is a very dense, very hot, spent core - a White Dwarf, an object with a sun-like mass condensed into an earth-sized body.


Sun-like Star Details
Mass: 0.5 to 9 Suns
Surface Temperature: 5,000° to 7,000° K
Lifetime: Billions of years.
End point: White dwarf and planetary nebula.