1.

What is the source or cause of the Sun’s light, and how do all the elements in the periodic
table get produced?

2. What is the general process by which a large diffuse cloud of gas turns into a star and
surrounding planets?

3. Name of the two end states of stars much more massive than the Sun and describe their
physical properties?

The Sun main source of energy, as many other stars, is the fusion of elemental hydrogen into
helium. It happens in the core of the star, where temperatures exceed 10 million Kelvin and energy
is released thanks to mass-energy conversion. The energy then travels to the outer region of the
star and it violently disturbs the surface, causing prominences, flares and sunspot.

Hydrogen and Helium and other light elements were formed in the Big Bang, but the other
elements were created in the core of stars that are 2 to 20 time more massive than the Sun. Due
to their mass these stars have higher density, pressure and temperature that allows the fusion
between nuclei heavier than helium.

It is important to note that Nuclear fusion proceeds in stages, an heavy element is not
immediately created but each nuclei is added by one or two other nuclei in diverse patterns.

At the beginning of their life stars are just cloud of gas and dust that begins to contract due to
their own gravity, also influenced by magnetic fields and rotation. Gaining in size the star becomes
a main sequence star once it starts creating energy through nuclear fusion of hydrogen into
helium in its core.

A star much massive than the Sun ends its life in only two possible ways: a neutron star or a black
hole.

When the star has sufficient mass in its core to overcome the electron degeneracy pressure
protons and electrons are forced to fuse and create pure neutron material through a process that
is the reverse of beta decay. Since neutrons have no electric charge it becomes one giant atomic
nucleus, with an atomic number of 10 to the power of 54, where pressure force it bounce until its
core collapse and there is an enormous dispersion of energy toward the “outside”. This is what
we call a Supernova.

When a star is more than three times the mass of the Sun it ends its life as a black hole.

Thanks to Einstein’s general theory of relativity we understand that space and time are a single
entity and that it can be influenced, “curved” by external forces, in particular gravity.

As a massive star collapse it curves more and more the space-time until it has shrunk so much
that it creates a black hole, a tear in the fabric of spacetime. Where everything that falls inside is
crushed into a point of infinite density and infinite small, called singularity, that everything cease to
exists, even space and time.