STARS:

• Galaxies are each made up of many billions of stars.

• The Sun is a star in the galaxy known as the Milky Way .
• Other stars that make up the Milky Way are much further away from
the Earth than the Sun is from the Earth .
• Astronomical distances can be measured in light-years, where one light-
year is the distance travelled in (the vacuum of) space by light in one
year
• One light-year is equal to 9.5 × 1015m 3 .

LIFE CYCLE OF A STAR:

(a) a star is formed from interstellar clouds of gas and dust that contain
hydrogen
(b) a protostar is an interstellar cloud collapsing and increasing in temperature as
a result of its internal gravitational attraction
(c) (c) a protostar becomes a stable star when the inward force of gravitational
attraction is balanced by an outward force due to the high temperature in the
centre of the star
(d) all stars eventually run out of hydrogen as fuel for the nuclear reaction
(e) most stars expand to form red giants
(f) and more massive stars expand to form red supergiants when most of the
hydrogen in the centre of the star has been converted to helium .
(g) a red giant from a less massive star forms a planetary nebula with a white
dwarf star at its centre.
(h) (g) a red supergiant explodes as a supernova, forming a nebula containing
hydrogen and new heavier elements, leaving behind a neutron star or a black
hole at its centre the nebula from a supernova may form new stars with
orbiting planets.

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LIFE CYCLE OF A STAR:
The life cycle of a star,includes:
the birth of a star
the formation of the main sequence star
the old age of the star
the death of the star
the remnants of the star
Protostar:
A nebula is the giant cloud of dust and gas in space. The gas present is
mainly hydrogen.
Inside the nebula, there are areas where gravity causes dust and gas to
clump-together.
As these clumps gather more and more mass, their gravitational pull
increases, forcing more atoms together.
This process is known as accretion, and the result is a protostar.

Main sequence star:

As gravity pulls the gases closer to the center of the ball, gravitational
energy begins to heat the gases, causing the gases to emit radiation.
At first, the emitted radiation simply escapes into space.
However, as the protostar pulls in matter ,and gets more dense, much of
the radiation becomes trapped inside, heating the protostar even more
quickly.
When the temperature reaches more than 10 million Kelvin, the hydrogen
fuses to form helium in their cores.
The star is then called as the main sequence star.
A star contains a lot of mass, which has a lot of gravity.
The gravity pulls inwards, which could cause a star to collapse in on itself.
In a main sequence star, this inward pull is balanced by the outward gas
pressure due to the nuclear fusion reactions deep in the star's core.
This balance is called hydrostatic equilibrium and stops the main sequence
star from collapsing.
Old age of the star:
Here the stars change from being main sequence stars to either red giants or red super
giants. This will depend upon their mass.
So, a star up to 1 point 5 times the mass of the Sun will transform into a Red Giant.
On the other hand, a star 1 point 5 times to over 3 times the mass of the Sun will
transform into a red Super-giant.
Thus red giants and red-super giants are the old-age stars.

Note:
If you think of the Main Sequence star as the hydrogen-core-fusion-stage of a star's
life, then the-old age star phase of the stars, is the hydrogen shell fusion stage.

The death phase of a star. and its remnants:

More massive stars blow up in a gigantic nuclear explosion called as a supernova.
The remnants of this explosion of the massive star are the neutron-star and the black
hole.
After explosion, the mater in the core of the stars compresses and the electrons and
the protons react to form the neutrons and hence the stars are called as the neutron-
stars.
When the most massive stars of all explode, the core cannot resist the pull of gravity
and goes on collapsing. The result is a black hole. Nothing can escape from the black hole,
not even light, so it cannot be seen. However the presence of a black hole can be
detected by its effect on matter near it or light going past it.According to the
scientists, there is a massive black hole at the centre of most galaxies
When a main-sequence-star like our Sun dies, it doesn‛t explode into a supernova or
collapse into a black hole. Instead, it gently sheds its outer layers, which form a
beautiful cloud called a “planetary nebula”, while the dying star‛s core becomes a white-
dwarf.
Gravity and other influences shape the cloud into interesting patterns, and the complex
chemicals inside the nebula glow in interesting colours when lit by the white dwarf. A
white dwarf is the final stage of a star‛s life cycle before it becomes a dead lump of
carbon , or a black dwarf.
The white dwarf changes into a black dwarf, when it uses helium as its nuclear fuel,
converting it into carbon by fusion.