-why do you think massive star has shorter lifespan than average star ?
-Stars are born, live, and die. But why do some stars have a shorter lifespan than others?
-Scientists have long been puzzled by the fact that massive stars tend to have shorter lifespans than average-sized stars.
– Some scientists believe that the answer may lie in the way that massive stars burn fuel. Because they are larger, they consume fuel more quickly, which causes them to die sooner.
The mass of a star is the best predictor of how long it will live. In general, the more massive a star is, the quicker it depletes its fuel supply, which results in a shorter lifespan for the star. After just a few million years of fusion, the most massive stars may run out of fuel and blow themselves apart in the form of a supernova. On the other hand, a star with the same mass as the Sun can maintain its ability to fuse hydrogen for another about 10 billion years. And if the star is really tiny, with a mass that is just a tenth of that of the Sun, then it can continue to fuse hydrogen for up to a trillion years, which is longer than the age of the universe at the present time. Now we get to the important question: what causes stars to explode?
The mass of a star is another factor that must be considered while attempting to answer the question “How do stars die?” Core-collapse supernovae are some of the most powerful explosions in the cosmos, and they are triggered when the most massive stars run out of fuel and then collapse in on themselves to form a core. The energy emitted by a supernova has the potential to greatly outshine the remainder of its host galaxy, even if only temporarily. Depending on the amount of material that is left, the leftover stellar core will eventually create either a neutron star or a black hole. If the core contains between 1.44 and 3 solar masses, then that mass will compress into a volume that is just 10 to 15 miles across before a mechanism known as neutron degeneracy pressure stops the core from completely collapsing. The precise maximum limit on the mass of a neutron star is unknown, but when it reaches around three solar masses, not even the pressure caused by neutron degeneracy can stop the inward compression caused by gravity, and the core eventually collapses to become a black hole.
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The destiny of average stars, or stars with masses up to 1.44 times that of the Sun, like our Sun, is only little less bizarre. As their cores run out of hydrogen to fuse, these stars undergo a process that causes them to grow into red giants and then lose their outer layers. A white dwarf star is what’s left behind in these planetary nebulae after everything else has gone. White dwarfs, much like neutron stars, are incapable of fusing hydrogen into helium and instead rely on the degeneracy pressure for their continued existence. However, in the case of white dwarfs, it is the electrons that are degenerate and are the ones that are packed together and forced into higher energy states.
White dwarfs will ultimately transform into black dwarfs if they are left to their own devices. Due to the fact that it takes a white dwarf longer than the age of the universe for it to completely fade away, black dwarfs have not been seen yet. If the white dwarf is a component of a binary system, though, it has a chance of avoiding that particular destiny entirely. The white dwarf may explode in a type Ia supernova without leaving any remnants behind if it accretes materials from its partner star before the explosion.
Even the most little stars in the cosmos have very lengthy lifetimes; in fact, none of them have even come close to reaching their conclusion. Red dwarfs are stars that have less than 0.4 times the mass of the sun and burn at such a low rate that they have the potential to survive for 100 billion years, which is much longer than the age of the universe at this moment.
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Massive stars have shorter lifetimes than ordinary tiny stars do because, although having more hydrogen for nuclear reactions, they use their fuel at a considerably quicker speed due of their extremely big size. This results in massive stars running out of fuel far sooner than common small stars.
The most powerful stars have ten to one hundred times the mass of the sun, but their luminosity is one million times more. As a result, they use their fuel one thousand times more quickly, and as a result, they only live for one million years or fewer.
On the other hand, the tiniest stars, which have a mass that is less than that of the Sun, have the potential to survive for hundreds of billions of years longer than the Sun itself.
It’s not what I believe; it’s the physical laws that govern the universe.
The core temperature of a star increases proportionally with its mass. In addition, when temperatures increase, the rates of thermonuclear reactions accelerate at an exponential pace.
In the rate equation, there is a factor called exp(-E/kT), where E is the amount of energy that must be present for the reaction to take place and T is the temperature. As a general rule, E is greater than kT, which means that reactions are exponentially unlikely, but as temperature rises, they become exponentially more likely.
The rates likewise grow proportionally with the cube of the matter density in the core.
What ends up happening is that the core of the star contracts until it becomes sufficiently hot and compact to convert hydrogen into helium. Radiation pressure acts to counteract the gravitational pull of the core, providing support for it. Once all of the hydrogen has been burned up, the core will continue to contract until it is hot enough to convert helium into carbon, and so on.
Because the rate of combustion increases at a rate that is exponentially proportional to temperature, a bigger mass has less of an impact. This impact is magnified further by the square of the connection between density and volume.
Massive stars consume themselves much as brushfires do when there is a strong breeze.
They are so heated that the gases they contain are expelled.
On the opposite end of the size range is something called a red dwarf, which burns like an oven with convection. When gas travels to the surface, it cools and then falls back down to be recycled. As a direct consequence of this, a massive star will expire in a few million years, but a red dwarf would continue to exist for billions of years.
– Massive stars have shorter lifespans than average stars because they expend their fuel at a much faster rate. This is due to their high mass and the strong gravitational forces that are pulling in material from around them. As these stars burn through their fuel, they become increasingly unstable and eventually die in spectacular explosions known as supernovae. While we still have much to learn about star formation and death, scientists are making great strides in understanding the complex processes that take place within these celestial objects. What do you think is the most fascinating thing about massive stars?