RESEARCH ABOUT STARS

The understanding of stars and knowing what they are.

MAY 29, 2023

BY: BRYLLE JAIRUS J LACAMEN
 Introduction
The understanding of a star
Outer Space, it has a lot of things in it. Our ancestors were very interested in space and we,
their descendants, are about to study it more.
We have already made progress in learning more about space but there are more things we
need to discover. In the start of this research, we are only going to talk about one important
thing about space. And that important thing is a star.
Stars were admired by our ancestors and until today we people also admire them. Stars were
very useful during the times when we humans didn’t have access to the gadgets we have
today: GPS, Maps, Compasses. The stars were used as a navigation system of our ancestors
leading them to places or guiding them back home. Stars were believed to be dead souls who
went to heaven, plus they thought stars were also guardians and guides.
But as we humans successfully escaped the earth. We humans strived to learn more about
space, our perspective on stars changed. Stars are now classified as balls of plasma…will get to
that later…. that give thermal energy and UV rays. Scientists were also able to discover that
there are 200 billion – 400 billion stars in the universe, that is a lot!
Stars also hold solar systems like our Sun; the Sun is also classified as a star. Our Sun or star
holds planetary systems, so that means if there are 400 billion stars then there might be a lot
of planets.
Scientists also discovered that stars have a lifespan (depends on what kind of star they are), it
means that stars have also a life and…. death. But stars live so long, they don’t need to worry
that much about their death.
Scientists believe that stars are born from nebulas which are giant clouds of dust and gas,
these materials could be the source of how stars are born. Stars also have their death, there
are two different ways that a star may die, a violent one and a peaceful one. There are also
many sayings that the violent death of the star is deadly and can give birth to a monstrous
object that eats and destroys anything in its way.
So, what is a star? Is it just a ball of fire? Or those shapes we made? What does it look like?
How do stars keep planetary systems? How is a star born and how does it die? What are the
benefits of stars to us? There are many questions to answer so let’s start answering them now.
Body:
What is a star?
The definition of a star is: an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma
held together by self-gravity (Wikipedia). If you don’t understand what it means, it is an object
in space that shines and is composed of plasma (an electrically charged gas) that is kept in a
bubble of its gravity. A star’s shape is spherical, it is spherical because the gravity of the stars
balances its matter so there are no deformities.

Stars are not actually shaped like those stars we see in the shops. In a website I searched
“most stars are much like the Sun—giant balls of gas burning billions of miles away. These
spherical stars pump out a steady stream of light that crosses vast stretches of space before it
illuminates the night sky. Down here on the ground, though, stars appear not as unwavering
and blazing spheres of plasma, but as gently twinkling stars.

Why is our perception of stars so distorted? Stars twinkle for an intuitive reason: The
movement of the air in Earth's atmosphere can momentarily dim a star's light”. NASA also
adds that “stars on the horizon seem most twinkly—because there is a lot more atmosphere
between you and a star near the horizon than between you and a star higher in the sky”.

How stars are born

Stars are born from the dust and gas clouds that are in a nebula, one example of a nebula is
the Orion Nebula. According to NASA about how stars form in the nebula clouds, “The turb-
ulence deep within these clouds gives rise to knots with sufficient mass that the gas and dust
can begin to collapse under its own gravitational attraction. As the cloud collapses, the
material at the center begins to heat up. Known as a protostar, it is this hot core at the heart
of the collapsing cloud that will one day become a star”. Adding some information the
remaining dust can become planets, asteroids, or comets or…. may remain as dust.

Types of stars
An average star lives around 50 million to 20 billion years, like our Sun. Our Sun is classified as
a Main Sequence Star because it is fueled by the nuclear fusion of hydrogen turning it to
helium (the fuel of a star). Main Sequence Star is just a star in its Main Sequence phase were
its like living like a young adult.

There are a lot of types of stars, there could be some that are brighter, some that are dimmer,
bigger or smaller. There could be stars that release more energy than others. The brightness of
a star depends on its color, the brightest one and the hottest is the blue stars. Blue stars are
very bright and have a temperature that is so hot, 10,000K – 50,000K (9726 °C – 49726 °C) to
be exact. Emitting that much light could also lower the lifespan of a star, the average life span
of a blue star is around 10 million years. There are less of them in the known universe.

The red stars are the cooler ones than the blue stars. They are mostly the ones that shine dimly
and expel little energy. A red star’s temperature is around 3,500K(3226°C) a very low temper-
ature for a star. They are the most abundant kind of stars in the known universe because of
their long lifespan, a lifespan of a red star or dwarf is 10 trillion years.
There are stars that are called hypergiants, these stars could be a 100 or more times more
massive than our Sun. These hypergiants have a temperature so high that its around
30,000K(29726°C), they emit hundreds of thousands of times more energy than our regular
star the Sun. Releasing that much energy shortens their lifespan, a hypergiant’s lifespans is just
only a few million years. Life is so short.

Stars and their fates

As what I said about the hypergiants, the bigger the star the shorter it lives. All stars die like us
people, they also have timers on how long they will live. Once a star uses all its fuel this is
where the star starts to die. On more of the explanation of how stars die NASA explains that
“When a star has fused all the hydrogen in its core, nuclear reactions cease. Deprived of the
energy production needed to support it, the core begins to collapse into itself and becomes
much hotter. Hydrogen is still available outside the core, so hydrogen fusion continues in a
shell surrounding the core. The increasingly hot core also pushes the outer layers of the star
outward, causing them to expand and cool, transforming the star into a red giant.
If the star is sufficiently massive, the collapsing core may become hot enough to support more
exotic nuclear reactions that consume helium and produce a variety of heavier elements up to
iron. However, such reactions offer only a temporary reprieve. Gradually the star’s internal
nuclear fires become increasingly unstable – sometimes burning furiously, other times dying
down. These variations cause the star to pulsate and throw off its outer layers, enshrouding
itself in a cocoon of gas and dust”.
There are many ways a star can turn into when it dies.
1. White Dwarfs
After the star turns into a red giant and loses all its fuel, it may turn into a white dwarf.
Most stars that die turn into white dwarfs. A white dwarf is a very dense star and has a
size typically like a planet, these white dwarfs are denser than planets despite being
small. White dwarfs are just the core of the star that loses all its fuel and survived its red
giant phase. Not exploding into a supernova. A white dwarf is still considered a dead
star, even if it still “shines”. They are considered dead because their atoms don’t fuse
hydrogen to give the white dwarf energy.
 But a white dwarf life isn’t over yet. If it was near another star, the white dwarf will start
to steal the matter(hydrogen) of that star’s outer layer. If the white dwarf steals enough
matter it explodes into a Nova, expelling back its elements to the universe again.

2. The Supernovae of a Star Might Leave a Neutron Star or a Black Hole

Main Sequence stars over eight solar masses are destined to die in a massive explosion
called a supernova. A supernova is not a bigger explosion of a nova. In a nova explosion,
it is only the star’s surface that explodes. While in a supernova, the star’s core collapses
under its own weight and then explodes. Supernovas release energy that is so much,
humans can’t tell how much it is, unto the universe. The supernova of that star might
leave behind a neutron star or a black hole.

A neutron stars is a very dense star, denser than a white dwarf. If a star’s core was able
to win against the battle of pressure, it turns into a neutron star. A neutron star is made
by a collapse of a star under its own weight, when it fuses protons and electrons turning
it into neutrons. That’s why neutron stars have neutron in their names. Neutron stars
have powerful magnetic fields so powerful that it accelerates atoms around its magnetic
poles producing some powerful beams of radiation. This radiation can kill you. A
neutron star is also known as a pulsar.

Black holes are unstoppable machines that rip matter off objects and brings it to its
singularity. A blackhole is made when a star’s core loses the battle of pressure, turning
itself into a black hole. Black holes are destructive and are denser than any heavenly
bodies, even if their as small as a coin they are still much denser than the Sun.
Nothing can escape a black hole’s gravity, not even light or electromagnetic waves. If
you wonder what’s in a black hole it just an empty space an endless void of darkness, it
is also packed with a lot of matter in a very small area. These black holes look scary but
are very important for the universe, they recycle cosmological debris (asteroids and oth-
er useless space junk), stabilize the formation of galaxies; our Milky Way is in a middle
of a black hole, they also define the shapes of galaxies, and finally stratify the space
around them.

After the explosions of a supernova and nova, the dust and debris that was left behind after
the explosions eventually blend with the surrounding interstellar gas and dust. Enriching the
interstellar gas and dust with the heavy elements and chemical compounds produced during
the stellar death. These materials will be recycled, providing the building blocks for new
generation of stars and accompanying planetary systems.
Conclusion:
Stars are out of this world objects, they were admired by our ancestors and us their des-
cendants. Stars were part of our culture and were believed to be dead spirits or guardians.
They were also good waypoints for finding a way home.
Stars by science definition are spheres of hot gas shining brightly, our Sun is too a star. They are
born from clouds of dust and gas, being fused together by their gravity attraction. Some of the
dust turning into planets or other stuff.
Main sequence stars are stars that are fueled by nuclear fusion of hydrogen, being fused into
helium for the fuel of a star. There are many types of stars, some being cool and emit less
energy like the red dwarfs, some just being average regular stars like our Sun, and some that
are called hypergiants because of how big they are and how much energy they expel.
All stars have a lifespan, some shorter than others around a few million years, while others live
so long that it takes 10 trillion years for them to die. When stars are close to their death, it
means that they have no hydrogen to fuel themselves anymore and start to collapse under its
weight.
Most stars like our Sun, turn into white dwarf when they die. These white dwarfs are very
dense and a bit bigger than Earth. Most white dwarfs explode into novas. If the star is massive
then it explodes into a supernova, depending on what it will turn into. If the star’s core wins
the battle of pressure it turns into a neutron star, if it loses then it turns into a black hole. The
dust and gas remained after the death of the star is recycled and used to make more new
generations of stars.
This research about stars helps me want to know more about them and how amazing God
created these things. Stars are very important for our universe because they are amazing and
are a part of balancing the universe. We should know more about stars and learn what do they
do for us simple organisms.
Let us be a star for our newer generations and show them the rights ways and see how
amazing our universe is. Even if there are scary things in it, we should stand and not fear to try
our best in everything we do.
Bibliography:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/surprisingly-complicated-reason-why-stars-seem-have-
points-180952587/
https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a27392563/blue-supergiants-explained/
https://study.com/academy/lesson/average-star-definition-life-cycle-quiz.html
https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/how-do-stars-form-and-evolve
https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/how-do-stars-form-and-evolve