WHAT IS A STAR?

WHAT IS A
STAR?
A star is an astronomical object
comprising a luminous spheroid of
plasma held together by self-gravity. The
nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many
other stars are visible to the naked eye at
night, but their immense distances from
Earth make them appear as fixed points
of light.
THE MASS OF
A STAR
 THE MASS OF
A STAR
Stars can range in mass from the least massive red dwarf stars to the
monstrous hypergiant stars. Let’s take a look at the mass of stars at
various sizes.

The least massive stars in the Universe are the red dwarf stars. These are
stars with less than 50% the mass of the Sun, and they can be as small as
7.5% the mass of the Sun. This tiny mass is the minimum amount of
gravitational force you need for a star to be able to raise the temperature
in its core to the point that nuclear fusion can begin. If an object is less
than this 7.5%, or about 80 times the mass of Jupiter, it can never get
going; astronomers call these failed stars brown dwarfs. Instead of
having nuclear fusion in their cores, brown dwarfs are heated by the
gravitational friction of their ongoing collapse.
Above 50% the mass of the Sun, and you start to get
colors other than red. The least massive stars are
orange, and then yellow, and then white. Our own
Sun is about the least massive example you can have
of a white star (it looks yellow, but that’s just
because of the Earth’s atmosphere).
The most massive stars are the blue giants,
supergiants and hypergiants. Rigel, for example, is
the brightest star in the constellation Orion. It has
17 times the mass of the Sun, and gives off 66,000
times the energy of the Sun.

But an even more extreme example is the blue

hypergiant Eta Carinae, located about 8,000 light-
years away. Eta Carinae is thought to have 150
times the mass of the Sun and puts out 4 million
times as much energy. It’s probably less than 3
million years old, and astronomers guess that it will
detonate as a supernova within 100,000 years. The
most massive stars live the shortest lives.
HOW IS THE MASS OF THE
STAR DETERMINED?
 HOW IS THE MASS OF
THE STAR DETERMINED?

The mass of a star can be

determined by analysis of
orbit of binary stars
 LOW-MASS STARS

Low-mass stars are the longest lived of

the energy-producing objects in the
universe. Though they far outnumber all
other stars, they are the faintest ones,
and thus are hard to detect. Some low-
mass stars will live for trillions of years.
All stars in the universe are at different
stages of their life cycle.
 A nebula is a giant cloud of dust and gas
in space. Some nebulae (more than one
NEBULA nebula) come from the gas and dust
thrown out by the explosion of a dying
star, such as a supernova. Other nebulae
are regions where new stars are
beginning to form.
PROTOSTAR

A nebula is a giant cloud of dust and gas

in space. Some nebulae (more than one
nebula) come from the gas and dust
thrown out by the explosion of a dying
star, such as a supernova. Other nebulae
are regions where new stars are
beginning to form.
 LIFE CYCLE OF A STAR

WHITE
AVERAGE DWARF
STAR RED PLANETARY
GIANT NEBULA NEUTRON
STELLAR STAR
NEBULA

BLACK
HOLE
MASSIVE RED SUPERNOVA
STAR SUPERGIANT
THANK YOU!
Presented By: Group 5
Power Point Presentation Created By: Mark Jhudiel F.
Villareal