INTRODUCTION (new page)

Stellar evolution is the process by which a star changes over the course of its lifetime and how it can
lead to the creation of a new star. Depending on the mass of the star, its lifetime can range from a
few million years for the most massive to trillions of years for the least massive, which is considerably
longer than the current age of the universe. The table shows the lifetimes of stars as a function of
their masses.[1] All stars are formed from collapsing clouds of gas and dust, often
called nebulae or molecular clouds. Over the course of millions of years, these protostars settle down
into a state of equilibrium, becoming what is known as a main-sequence star.

Nuclear fusion powers a star for most of its existence. Initially the energy is generated by the fusion
of hydrogen atoms at the core of the main-sequence star. Later, as the preponderance of atoms at
the core becomes helium, stars like the Sun begin to fuse hydrogen along a spherical shell
surrounding the core. This process causes the star to gradually grow in size, passing through
the subgiant stage until it reaches the red-giant phase. Stars with at least half the mass of the Sun
can also begin to generate energy through the fusion of helium at their core, whereas more massive
stars can fuse heavier elements along a series of concentric shells. Once a star like the Sun has
exhausted its nuclear fuel, its core collapses into a dense white dwarf and the outer layers are
expelled as a planetary nebula. Stars with around ten or more times the mass of the Sun can explode
in a supernova as their inert iron cores collapse into an extremely dense neutron star or black hole.
Although the universe is not old enough for any of the smallest red dwarfs to have reached the end
of their existence, stellar models suggest they will slowly become brighter and hotter before running
out of hydrogen fuel and becoming low-mass white dwarfs.[2]

Stellar evolution is not studied by observing the life of a single star, as most stellar changes occur too
slowly to be detected, even over many centuries. Instead, astrophysicists come to understand how
stars evolve by observing numerous stars at various points in their lifetime, and by simulating stellar
structure using computer models.

WHAT IS A STAR? (NEW PAGE)

Astronomers estimate that the universe could contain up to one septillion stars – that’s a one
followed by 24 zeros. Our Milky Way alone contains more than 100 billion, including our most well-
studied star, the Sun.

Stars are giant balls of hot gas – mostly hydrogen, with some helium and small amounts of other
elements. Every star has its own life cycle, ranging from a few million to trillions of years, and its
properties change as it ages.

BIRTH
Stars form in large clouds of gas and dust called molecular clouds. Molecular clouds range from 1,000
to 10 million times the mass of the Sun and can span as much as hundreds of light-years. Molecular
clouds are cold which causes gas to clump, creating high-density pockets. Some of these clumps can
collide with each other or collect more matter, strengthening their gravitational force as their mass
grows. Eventually, gravity causes some of these clumps to collapse. When this happens, friction
causes the material to heat up, which eventually leads to the development of a protostar – a baby
star. Batches of stars that have recently formed from molecular clouds are often called stellar
clusters, and molecular clouds full of stellar clusters are called stellar nurseries.

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LIFE
At first, most of the protostar’s energy comes from heat released by its initial collapse. After millions
of years, immense pressures and temperatures in the star’s core squeeze the nuclei of hydrogen
atoms together to form helium, a process called nuclear fusion. Nuclear fusion releases energy,
which heats the star and prevents it from further collapsing under the force of gravity.

Astronomers call stars that are stably undergoing nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium main
sequence stars. This is the longest phase of a star’s life. The star’s luminosity, size, and temperature
will slowly change over millions or billions of years during this phase. Our Sun is roughly midway
through its main sequence stage.

A star’s gas provides its fuel, and its mass determines how rapidly it runs through its supply, with
lower-mass stars burning longer, dimmer, and cooler than very massive stars. More massive stars
must burn fuel at a higher rate to generate the energy that keeps them from collapsing under their
own weight. Some low-mass stars will shine for trillions of years – longer than the universe has
currently existed – while some massive stars will live for only a few million years.

DEATH
At the beginning of the end of a star’s life, its core runs out of hydrogen to convert into helium. The
energy produced by fusion creates pressure inside the star that balances gravity’s tendency to pull
matter together, so the core starts to collapse. But squeezing the core also increases its temperature
and pressure, making the star slowly puff up. However, the details of the late stages of the star’s
death depend strongly on its mass.

A low-mass star’s atmosphere will keep expanding until it becomes a subgiant or giant star while
fusion converts helium into carbon in the core. (This will be the fate of our Sun, in several billion
years.) Some giants become unstable and pulsate, periodically inflating and ejecting some of their
atmospheres. Eventually, all the star’s outer layers blow away, creating an expanding cloud of dust
and gas called a planetary nebula.

All that’s left of the star is its core, now called a white dwarf, a roughly Earth-sized stellar cinder that
gradually cools over billions of years.

A high-mass star goes further. Fusion converts carbon into heavier elements like oxygen, neon, and
magnesium, which will become future fuel for the core. For the largest stars, this chain continues
until silicon fuses into iron. These processes produce energy that keeps the core from collapsing, but
each new fuel buys it less and less time. The whole process takes just a few million years. By the time
silicon fuses into iron, the star runs out of fuel in a matter of days. The next step would be fusing iron
into some heavier element but doing so requires energy instead of releasing it.

The star’s iron core collapses until forces between the nuclei push the brakes, then it rebounds. This
change creates a shock wave that travels outward through the star. The result is a huge explosion
called a supernova. The core survives as an incredibly dense remnant, either a neutron star or a black
hole.

Material cast into the cosmos by supernovae and other stellar events will enrich future molecular
clouds and become incorporated into the next generation of stars.

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SOURCE OF ENERGY OF A STAR
The Sun is Earth’s major source of energy, yet the planet only receives a small portion of its energy
and the Sun is just an ordinary star. Many stars produce much more energy than the Sun. The energy
source for all stars is nuclear [Link] are made mostly of hydrogen and helium, which are packed
so densely in a star that in the star’s center the pressure is great enough to initiate nuclear fusion
reactions. In a nuclear fusion reaction, the nuclei of two atoms combine to create a new atom. Most
commonly, in the core of a star, two hydrogen atoms fuse to become a helium atom. Although
nuclear fusion reactions require a lot of energy to get started, once they are going they produce
enormous amounts of [Link] a star, the energy from fusion reactions in the core pushes outward
to balance the inward pull of gravity. This energy moves outward through the layers of the star until
it finally reaches the star’s outer surface. The outer layer of the star glows brightly, sending the
energy out into space as electromagnetic radiation, including visible light, heat, ultraviolet light, and
radio waves.

LIFE CYCLE OF A STAR (new page)

Seven Main Stages of a Star

Stars come in a variety of masses and the mass determines how radiantly the star will shine and how
it dies. Massive stars transform into supernovae, neutron stars and black holes while average stars
like the sun, end life as a white dwarf surrounded by a disappearing planetary nebula. All stars,
irrespective of their size, follow the same 7 stage cycle, they start as a gas cloud and end as a star
remnant.

1. Giant Gas Cloud

A star originates from a large cloud of gas. The temperature in the cloud is low enough for the
synthesis of molecules. The Orion cloud complex in the Orion system is an example of a star in this
stage of life.

2. Protostar

When the gas particles in the molecular cloud run into each other, heat energy is produced. This
results in the formation of a warm clump of molecules referred to as the Protostar. The creation of
Protostars can be seen through infrared vision as the Protostars are warmer than other materials in
the molecular cloud. Several Protostars can be formed in one cloud, depending on the size of the
molecular cloud.

3. T-Tauri Phase

A T-Tauri star begins when materials stop falling into the Protostar and release tremendous amounts
of energy. The mean temperature of the Tauri star isn’t enough to support nuclear fusion at its core.
The T-Tauri star lasts for about 100 million years, following which it enters the most extended phase
of development – the Main sequence phase.

4. Main Sequence

The main sequence phase is the stage in development where the core temperature reaches the point
for the fusion to commence. In this process, the protons of hydrogen are converted into atoms of
helium. This reaction is exothermic; it gives off more heat than it requires and so the core of a main-
sequence star releases a tremendous amount of energy.

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The next stages (after the main sequence) for low-mass stars:

 Red Giant

Stars spend most of their lives in the main-sequence stage. When the hydrogen in the centre of a star
runs out, the star begins to use hydrogen further out from its core.

This causes it to start to grow. Its radius can reach up to 400 times its original size. As the star
expands it also cools. The change in temperature causes the star to glow redder. The star is now a
red giant.

Red giants can be 20 and 100 times the size of the Sun though only contain 0.25 to 8 times the mass
of the Sun. They are also very bright stars. The surface temperature of a red giant is less than 4,000 -
5,000 K.

Over time, as the outer layers of the star expand, gravity causes its core to shrink and contract. The
temperature and pressure in the centre increase until nuclear fusion can start again. Now the core is
fusing helium, rather than hydrogen.

The star, now powered by helium, starts to shrink, get hotter and turn blue. However, the star's
supply of helium quickly runs out, so this stage only lasts for about a million years. When the helium
runs out, the core shrinks again. This time the star begins to use helium further out from its core. At
the same time, it may start fusing hydrogen in a shell around the helium fusion!

The outer layers of the star expand, cool and turn red again. It has entered its second red giant
phase.

Red giants can swallow up planets as they expand. The Sun will reach its red giant stage in about
5,000 million years time. During this phase, it will probably engulf the inner planets of our Solar
System which could include the Earth. But don't worry! This won't happen for a very long time.

 PLANETARY NEBULA

The planetary nebula phase is a final stage in a low-mass star's life. During this phase, the star sheds
its outer layers. This creates an expanding, glowing shell of very hot gas.

Despite the name, they have nothing to do with planets. They got this name because astronomers
using small telescopes long ago, and they thought they looked a bit like planets.

Low-mass stars turn into planetary nebulae towards the end of their red giant phase. At that point,
the star becomes highly unstable and starts to pulsate. This produces strong stellar winds, which
throw off the outer layers of the star.

The outer layers drift away from the star, leaving a small, hot, bright core behind, called a white
dwarf. The white dwarf gives of ultraviolet radiation which lights up the layers of gas around the star.

Over time, the material from the planetary nebula is scattered into space. Eventually it will form part
of the clouds of dust and gas where new stars form.

Planetary nebula last just a few tens of thousands of years. This is short compared to the thousands
of millions of years which low-mass stars shine for.

Our Sun is a low-mass star and will produce a planetary nebula in about 5,000 million years time.

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  WHITE DWARF

About 6 % of all known stars in our part of the Milky Way are white dwarfs. When a small star runs
out of fuel, it produces a planetary nebula. The outer layers of the nebula drift away from the star,
leaving a white dwarf.

A white dwarf is a bright, hot, compact star. They are about the same size, in terms of volume, as
the Earth. However, they contain about as much mass as the Sun.

Because of their small radius, they are very faint. A typical white dwarf shines with only 0.1& - 1 % of
the brightness of the Sun. Our nearest white dwarf is Sirius B, but it is too faint to see with an
optical telescope.

White dwarfs do not release energy through nuclear fusion reactions. The light and heat they emit
are left over from previous stages of their evolution. Despite this, white dwarfs have some of the
hottest surface temperatures of any star. They can be over 100,000 °C!

The material within a white dwarf was created by its parent star during its main sequence and red
giant phases. This material is compacted into a relatively small space, which makes white dwarfs very
dense. The density of a white dwarf is about 1 million tonnes per cubic metre which is 200,000 times
as dense as the Earth! Imagine the mass of the Sun, squashed to the size of the Earth! A matchbox of
white dwarf material would weigh the same as fifteen elephants!

The material is so compact it reaches a state known as neutron degeneracy. The normal relationships
between temperature, pressure and density do not hold for degenerate matter. As the mass of a
white dwarf increases, its radius decreases. There is a maximum mass beyond which a white dwarf
becomes unstable and collapses to form a black hole. This limit (known as the Chandrasekhar Limit)
is about 1.44 solar masses.

 BLACK DWARF

White dwarfs do cool down, but very slowly. Their small surface area means they radiate their heat
away very slowly. It will take a white dwarf billions of years to cool down to temperatures near
10,000 K. For comparison, the Sun's surface temperature is around 6,000 K.

A black dwarf is just a white dwarf that has cooled downed so much that it no longer emits any heat
or light. The time it takes for this to happen is longer than the current age of the universe (13.8
billions years), so no black dwarfs exist yet. This makes them theoretical objects, not real ones.

The next stages (after the main sequence) for high-mass stars:

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RED SUPERGIANT

Supergiants have the largest radius of all known stars. They evolve from main-sequence stars.
Supergiants contain 8 - 200 times the mass of the Sun! They also shine brightly. One supergiant can
be as bright as a million Suns.

Supergiants use up the hydrogen and helium in their cores within a few million years. They then start
to burn carbon, and the stars expands and cools. Red supergiants have low surface temperatures
below 4, 100 K.

This continues with heavier and heavier elements until it contains a core of iron. At this point, fusion
stops, and the star collapses under its own gravity, creating a supernova explosion.

 SUPERNOVA

Supernova are huge explosions in space. They take place during the final stages of a some stars' lives.
When they erupt, one supernova can briefly shine brighter than a whole galaxy.

There are different types of supernovae.

Core-collapse Supernovae

The most well known are core-collapse supernovae. These take place when a star, at least 8 times
the mass of the Sun, runs out of fuel.

When a massive star reaches the final stages of its evolution, its core is made mostly of iron. The star
cannot fuse elements heavier than iron. This means fusion stops. At this point, there is no outward
pressure to balance the inward pull of its gravity. Gravity pulls all the material in the star towards its
middle. This starts a sudden, rapid collapse of the star.

The outer layers of the star collapse inwards until they reach the core. They bounce off the surface of
the dense iron core at around 30, 000 kilometres per second. This sends shock waves through the
star. The shock waves cause the star to explode as a supernova.

Huge amounts of energy are created during the collapse, and new elements form in the process. The
star brightens quickly, then gradually fades away, leaving only core. During the explosion, the core
collapses down to create either a neutron star or a black hole.

The material which was thrown out during the explosion surrounds the core. We call this a
supernova remnant. It will eventually drift into space and become part of a huge cloud of dust and
gas. New stars will form in this cloud. This is how elements made in the first stars were recycled to
make everything in our Solar System, including us!

Type Ia Supernovae

The other type of supernova are called Type Ia, or thermonuclear explosions. This type of explosion
does not occur when a massive star's core collapses. They instead happen in a binary (or double) star
system. To trigger a type Ia supernova, one of two stars must be a white dwarf. The other star is often
a low-mass star, like our Sun, or can be red giant star.

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Because it is so dense, the surface of a white dwarf has very strong gravity. This gravity pulls
material from the nearby star onto the white dwarf, and as it pulls in material from its companion
star, the white dwarf becomes more and more massive. This process is known as accretion.

Something called electron degeneracy pressure stops the white dwarf from collapsing. This means
the electrons inside each atom repel each other. This prevents the white dwarf from shrinking any
further.

During accretion, the mass of the white dwarf increases. If the white dwarf grows to over 1.44
times the mass of the Sun, the electrons are no longer strong enough to prevent the star from
collapsing. At this point, the star explodes as a type Ia supernova. This mass limit is called
the Chandrasekhar limit. During this type of explosion, the star is destroyed.

Type Ia supernovae are one of the brightest events in the Universe. They are many times brighter
other kinds of supernovae.

Type Ia supernovae always have the same brightness. This is because the explosion always takes
place when the white dwarf reaches a set mass. We call objects of known brightness 'standard
candles'.

We use standard candles - like type Ia explosions - to measure distances in space. These
observations have helped prove the Universe is expanding and accelerating.

 NEUTRON STARS

A neutron star is the collapsed core of a massive star. It is what is left of the star, after
a supernova explosion.

When a high-mass star comes to the end of its lifetime, its outer layers collapse onto the core. This
squashes the star's core to the point where the atoms are smashed to pieces, leaving only
neutrons. Neutrons are sub-atomic particles with no electric charge.

A neutron star can have the same mass as 1 or 2 Suns. However, it will only be about 20 km across.
Imagine squashing the Sun until it was the size of a city! For comparison, a house full of neutron
star material would weigh the same as the Moon. The only object denser than a neutron star is
a black hole.

Some neutron stars have been found to rotate several hundred times a second! These rotating
neutron stars are called Pulsars.

Pulsars emit beams of radio waves and other radiation. We can only detect them if the beam
points towards Earth, so there may more be pulsars that we cannot observe. As the neutron star
spins, the beams sweep past the Earth at regular intervals, or in pulses, hence the name. It's a bit
like seeing the flashes of light from a lighthouse.

The amount of time between each pulse can be as long as 20 seconds and as short as a few
thousandths of a second. This is incredibly fast when compared to the 24 hours it takes the Earth
to rotate.

The first pulsar was discovered in 1967 by Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Antony Hewish. At first, they
thought this regularly repeating radio signal could be from aliens, so they named it LGM-1 (Little
Green Men 1). But they soon realized that this was not the case!

 BLACK HOLES

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Black holes are very strange objects. They are made during supernova explosions. These take place
when very massive stars come to the end of their lives.

After the supernova, anything left of the star is squashed and compacted into an incredibly small,
dense object. This is the black hole. Once a black hole has formed, it grows by pulling in gas, dust,
stars, and even other black holes around it.

In 2015, scientists first detected gravitational waves. These ripples in space-time were caused by
two black holes colliding and shaking the Universe.

 GAMMA RAY OUTBURSTS

Gamma-ray bursts (or GRBs) are very short and intense bursts of gamma-ray radiation. If we take a
look at the electromagnetic spectrum, we can see that gamma rays are even higher in energy than
X-rays. This makes the events which create them extremely high-energy events.

GRBs were first discovered in 1967 by the Vela satellites. These satellites were not designed to
search for high energy events in space. They were designed to detect Soviet nuclear missile tests
which breached the nuclear test ban treaty. Their gamma radiation detectors - meant to detect
radiation from nuclear missiles on Earth - instead picked up gamma-ray bursts coming from outside
our Solar System!

Not all GRBs are the same. GRBs can last for different amounts of time, ranging from thousandths
of a second to minutes. The amount of energy they emit also varies. A key focus of current GRB
research is to investigate what creates the different types of GRBs.

Short gamma-ray bursts

GRBs which last for less than 2 seconds are short gamma-ray bursts. The mean average duration of
short GRBs is 0.2 seconds. This type of GRB makes up about 30 % of the total number observed.

They have been linked to high-energy collision events. For example mergers between black
holes or neutron stars. These type of objects have very strong magnetic fields. The fields eject the
GRBs as jets from the object's magnetic field poles.

Long gamma-ray bursts

GRBs which last for more than 2 seconds are long gamma-ray bursts. This type of GRB makes up
about 70 % of the total number observed.

We have been able to investigate this kind of GRB in more detail than short GRBs. This is because
they last longer, there are more of them, and they have brighter 'afterglows'.

This type of GRBs has been linked to the deaths of massive stars in galaxies where stars form very
rapidly.

THE SUN (new page)

Our Sun is a 4.5 billion-year-old yellow dwarf star – a hot glowing ball of hydrogen and helium – at
the center of our solar system. It’s about 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) from Earth and

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it’s our solar system’s only star. Without the Sun’s energy, life as we know it could not exist on our
home planet.

The Sun is a glowing, spinning ball of very hot gases, primarily hydrogen (92.1%) and helium
(7.9%). Trace amounts of other elements (0.1%), such as oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, silicon,
magnesium, neon, iron, and sulfur are also present.

In the extreme heat of the Sun, most of the gas exists as plasma. Plasma is an electrically charged
gas that forms at extremely high temperatures when fast moving atoms collide with each other
and knock electrons loose. More matter exists in the plasma state than as a liquid, solid, or gas –
the visible universe is thought to be 99% plasma!

The Sun Has Layers

Although the Sun isn’t solid, it has three distinguishable regions that solar physicists refer to as the
interior, the visible surface, and the atmosphere.

The Sun’s interior is divided further into three parts – core, radiative zone, and convective
zone. Inside the Sun, energy is created in the core and is moved from the center to the surface
through both radiation and convection, similarly to how bubbles move upward in a pot of boiling
water on your stove.

The boundary between the Sun's interior and the solar atmosphere is called the photosphere. It is
what we see as the visible surface of the Sun. The photosphere is not like the surface of a planet;
even if you could tolerate the heat, you couldn't stand on it.

The Sun does in fact have an atmosphere! The Sun’s outer atmosphere (also called the corona) is
the source of solar wind, which extends millions of kilometers into space, beyond the orbits of
Earth and the other planets. Solar wind is, in a sense, just an extension of the Sun’s atmosphere.
Our planet actually orbits within the atmosphere of a star! The Sun’s lower atmosphere is called
the chromosphere because the high hydrogen content causes it to appear red when viewed
through a solar telescope.

he Sun Emits Light and Other Forms of Energy

The Sun continuously emits vast quantities of energy as light and other forms of electromagnetic
radiation. It also gives off large amounts of matter as particle radiation called solar wind, mostly in
the form of high-energy protons and electrons.

The amount of light emitted by the Sun is relatively constant, varying by less than 0.01% over each
decade. However, because the Sun radiates such a large amount of energy (3.8 x 1026 terawatts
per second), even small fluctuations can have an impact on Earth. Explosive solar storms
sometimes crash into Earth, interfering with human communications, navigation, and electrical
transmission technologies. The energy from these solar storms also interacts with the upper layers
of Earth’s atmosphere to create the beautiful displays of color we call the aurora or northern and
southern lights.

STUDY OF STELLAR EVOLUTION (new page)

An important tool in the study of stellar evolution is the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (HR
diagram), which plots the absolute magnitudes of stars against their spectral type (or alternatively,
stellar luminosity versus effective temperature). As a star evolves, it moves to specific regions in

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the HR diagram, following a characteristic path that depends on the star’s mass and chemical
composition.

The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (HR diagram) is one of the most important tools in the study
of stellar evolution. Developed independently in the early 1900s by Ejnar Hertzsprung and Henry
Norris Russell, it plots the temperature of stars against their luminosity (the theoretical HR
diagram), or the colour of stars (or spectral type) against their absolute magnitude (the
observational HR diagram, also known as a colour-magnitude diagram).
Depending on its initial mass, every star goes through specific evolutionary stages dictated by its
internal structure and how it produces energy. Each of these stages corresponds to a change in the
temperature and luminosity of the star, which can be seen to move to different regions on the HR
diagram as it evolves. This reveals the true power of the HR diagram – astronomers can know a
star’s internal structure and evolutionary stage simply by determining its position in the diagram.

This Hertzsprung-Russell diagram shows a group of stars in various stages of their evolution. By far
the most prominent feature is the main sequence, which runs from the upper left (hot, luminous
stars) to the bottom right (cool, faint stars) of the diagram. The giant branch is also well populated
and there are many white dwarfs. Also plotted are the Morgan-Keenan luminosity classes that
distinguish between stars of the same temperature but different luminosity. -->
There are 3 main regions (or evolutionary stages) of the HR diagram:

1. The main sequence stretching from the upper left (hot, luminous stars) to the bottom right
(cool, faint stars) dominates the HR diagram. It is here that stars spend about 90% of their
lives burning hydrogen into helium in their cores. Main sequence stars have a Morgan-
Keenan luminosity class labelled V.

2. red giant and supergiant stars (luminosity classes I through III) occupy the region above the
main sequence. They have low surface temperatures and high luminosities which,
according to the Stefan-Boltzmann law, means they also have large radii. Stars enter this
evolutionary stage once they have exhausted the hydrogen fuel in their cores and have
started to burn helium and other heavier elements.

3. white dwarf stars (luminosity class D) are the final evolutionary stage of low to
intermediate mass stars, and are found in the bottom left of the HR diagram. These stars
are very hot but have low luminosities due to their small size.

The Sun is found on the main sequence with a luminosity of 1 and a temperature of around
5,400 Kelvin.
Astronomers generally use the HR diagram to either summarise the evolution of stars, or to
investigate the properties of a collection of stars. In particular, by plotting a HR diagram for either a
globular or open cluster of stars, astronomers can estimate the age of the cluster from where stars
appear to turnoff the main sequence.

CONCLUSION (new page)

In conclusion, the journey of stars is a fascinating exploration of cosmic processes marked by
diverse stages of evolution. From the humble beginnings of protostars in nebulous regions to
transformative events like supernovae, stars play a crucial role in shaping the vast expanse of the
universe. The remnants left behind, whether neutron stars or black holes, contribute to the
ongoing cosmic dynamics, influencing the birth of new celestial bodies. As we continue to explore

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the mysteries of the cosmos, the story of stars serves as a reminder of the intricate and ever-
changing nature of the universe.

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