radiation pressure

When we talk about star death, we’re not really talking about death. We’re talking about the end of a functioning star. Astronomers tend to personify cosmic objects like stars, saying that they are born and die, when it’s more like they transition into something new.

With stars in particular, there’s two main courses their “life cycles,” such that they are, can take: one for massive stars and one for low-mass stars.

We can further subdivide low-mass star “deaths” into those of red dwarfs—like our nearest stellar neighbor, Proxima Centauri—and those of medium-mass stars, like the sun.

But before we dive into the final stages of these stellar life cycles, let’s review what kinds of stars we’re talking about here…

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Astronomers have a pretty solid idea of how stars are born. They begin within the dense, cold dust of an interstellar cloud such as this one. They heat up and get more luminous as they contract, and then drop in luminosity as they continue to contract steadily toward the main sequence.

I’m going to spend at least the next ten or so posts talking about the main-sequence portion of a star’s life cycle. Basically, we’re talking about a star’s adulthood.

You know what, while we’re at it, why don’t I draw up an analogy between a star’s life cycle and that of a human:

When a human is a mere fetus developing within its mother, a star is a protostar.
We say a star has been “born” when it crosses the birth line—basically, satisfies certain expectations for its temperature and luminosity for its specific mass—and becomes visible.
After that, a star steadily approaches adulthood. A “child” star is referred to as a Young Stellar Object (YSO) or a pre-main-sequence star.
An “adult” star is one that has begun to fuse atomic nuclei in its core for fuel. At this stage, the star has reached the main sequence.
When a star runs out of fuel, it leaves the main sequence. We’ll cover this evolution in depth very soon.