Article by Wilson Reitter“A star is a massive ball of luminous hot gas held together by gravity.” “A star is powered by a nuclear reaction called a fusion.” “A fusion is the process or result of joining two or more things together to form a single entity.” “In the core of a star, hydrogen gas is fused to form helium.” Scientist are able to gather lots of information by analyzing starlight. Stars are formed by huge clouds of gas and dust. In star formation the cloud collapses due to gravity, as the cloud becomes more dense, the temperature rises. “Once the temperature increases to several million degrees, a nuclear reaction occurs at the center and a star forms.” In a star’s lifetime it will go through a period of burning hydrogen. This period would be know as stable. Red dwarfs burn hydrogen slowly and may do this for hundreds of billions of years. Supergiants will burn their hydrogen in a few million years. Red giants are started from a medium size star that burns up hydrogen in it’s core at the end of it’s lifetime. It then expands upon the outer layer. “As a star finally runs out of hydrogen it throws off its outer layer, forming a planetary nebula.” “At the center of the nebula a very hot and small star called a white dwarf remains.” Most stars end their life as a white dwarf. A medium sized star like our sun is stable for about 10 billion years. “In the future the sun will become a red giant star.” The will eventually end it’s life as a white dwarf. Large stars end their life in a massive explosion called a supernova. Supernovas can be seen from other galaxies. Neutron stars are the core of massive stars that exploded as supernovas. Some stars are so massive they collapse to a black hole. The color of a star is what shows the temperature. Properties
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Article By Dylan BeaverA supernova is an explosion of a star. It is one of the largest space explosions and can often be seen in other galaxies. The reason we cannot see some supernova’s is because our galaxy has too much dust. A supernova can be caused by a binary star system, which is when two stars orbit the same point. One of the stars will steal matter from the other, but when the star takes in too much matter, it will cause it to explode. Another way a supernova occurs is when the star runs out of nuclear fuel, this is known as the end of a lifetime for a star.
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