What Will We Do When Our Sun Dies?
Stars go through various stages of development. The type of development depends on the mass of the star. When stars are born they stabilize themselves in a fusion reaction initially burning hydrogen.The hydrogen is fused together eventually creating a core of helium.The reaction is called Nucleosynthesis. At some point the star will burn all of it's hydrogen.The main sequence star phase is the longest period in a star's life, and in the case of a star with a mass similar to that of our Sun, lasts for about 10 billion years. Our Sun is thought to be around 4.6 billion years old, which means that it is probably about halfway through its main sequence star phase.
The helium at the center of our sun will continue to increase until a core of helium is formed. As the sun tries to stabilize again the reaction will spread outward. As the helium core grows heavier, the core's temperature also increases, and the outer layers begin to expand until the star becomes a massive red star known as a red giant. In the case of a star that is about the size of our Sun, the gases of the outer layer are expelled, and then contract, so that the star becomes what it known as a white dwarf. |
The Life cycles of stars bigger than our sun (~5 times it's size) is a little different.These stars collapse under their own weight, causing a supernova explosion that scatters it through space. Its brightness at this point will be 100 billion times that of the Sun. When this happens, it looks as if a bright new star has appeared in the night sky. Supernova explosions of some exceptionally massive stars leave in their wake neutron stars, called pulsars, and black holes.
some audio (357k .au) on life cycles of larger stars.
is brought to you by the Solar Data Analysis Center. This site is very comprehensive with regards to our closest star. The Solar Data Analysis Center is a part of NASA. You can access current picture images of the sun at this site.
1997,1998
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