The paper gives a brief overview of the process of a star’s death. After billions of years since the birth of a star, there comes its death. No star can eternally burn as they will eventually run out of hydrogen fuel.
People think of death as the worst thing can happen to any creature as it is the end of a precious lifetime. But death is inevitable and in fact, it can be as valuable as life since it might be the new beginning and what is left of a life after death can be priceless and beautiful. How stars die is a prime example of this. The process of a star's death is as magnificent as how it was born or as meaningful as how it lived its life. After billions of years since the birth of a star, there comes its death. No star can eternally burn as they will eventually run out of hydrogen fuel.
Most of stars' lifetime is in the main sequence phase which is the most stable part. Stars with different masses die in different ways. The final mass before death of most stars is usually less than 1.4 times the mass of the Sun (Fraknoi et al.; sec. 23.1). The amount of very massive stars is very small. Our Sun and star with similar mass can live for billions of years before running out of fuel, while massive stars die at much younger ages (about few millions of years) (Fraknoi et al.; sec. 23.1). Not just the life expectancies of both types of stars are different, they also go through two distinct processes of death.
As for a low-mass star, the first sign of its death is when it expands and becomes a red giant. When the helium core cannot generate energy to resist the gravity pulling inward, it starts to shrink and raises its temperature. As the core's temperature reaches nearly 100 million Kelvin, a process called triple-alpha occurs (Nave, “Triple Alpha Process”). In particular, the fusion of three helium atoms forms carbon nuclei. The abundant energy released from the triple-alpha process heats up the core and speeds up nuclear reactions which also generate more heat, and again, more nuclear reactions occur due to the increase of heat. This is when the core of a small star “is ignited in a quick burst of fusion called a “helium flash”.” (Fraknoi et al.; sec. 23.1). Thanks to those nuclear reactions caused by fusing helium, the star returns to the balanced state in its center again. During this new stable period, the carbon particles formed previously in the triple-alpha process can sometimes form oxygen nuclei by combining with another helium nucleus (Fraknoi et al.; sec. 23.1). Meanwhile, the hydrogen shell is going through fusion and the surface temperature keeps increasing; therefore, the star's luminosity increases. The new stable period cannot last long as the core's temperature keeps rising and reaches 1000 million Kelvin.
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- Quote paper
- Ngan Vu (Author), 2020, The Process of the Death of a Star. A Brief Overview, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/1168001
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