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What is the Life Cycle of Stars?

Much like any living being, stars go through a natural cycle. This begins with birth,
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death. Of course, we’re talking about stars here, and the way they’re born, live and
die is completely different from any life form we are familiar with.

For one, the timescales are entirely different, lasting on the order of billions of
years. Also, the changes they go through during their lifespan are entirely
different too. And when they die, the consequences are, shall we say, much more
visible? Let’s take a look at the life cycle of stars.

Molecular Clouds:
Stars start out as vast clouds of cold molecular gas. The gas cloud could be
floating in a galaxy for millions of years, but then some event causes it to begin
collapsing down under its own gravity. For example when galaxies collide, regions
of cold gas are given the kick they need to start collapsing. It can also happen
when the shockwave of a nearby supernova passes through a region.

As it collapses, the interstellar cloud breaks up into smaller and smaller pieces,
and each
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become a star. As the cloud collapses, the gravitational energy causes it to heat
up, and the conservation of momentum from all the individual particles causes it
to spin.

Protostar:
As the stellar material pulls tighter and tighter together, it heats up pushing
against further gravitational collapse. At this point, the object is known as a
protostar. Surrounding the protostar is a circumstellar disk of additional material.
Some of this continues to spiral inward, layering additional mass onto the star.
The rest will remain in place and eventually form a planetary system.

Depending on the stars mass, the protostar phase of stellar evolution will be short
compared to its overall life span. For those that have one Solar Mass (i.e the same
mass as our Sun), it lasts about 1000,000 years.

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T Tauri Star:
A T Tauri star begins when material stops falling onto the protostar, and it’s
releasing a tremendous amount of energy. They are so-named because of the
prototype star used to research this phase of solar evolution – T Tauri, a variable
star located in the direction of the Hyades cluster, about 600 light years from
Earth.

A T Tauri star may be bright, but this all comes its gravitational energy from the
collapsing material. The central temperature of a T Tauri star isn’t enough to
support fusion at its core. Even so, T Tauri stars can appear as bright as main
sequence stars. The T Tauri phase lasts for about 100 million years, after which
the star will enter the longest phase of its development – the Main Sequence
phase.

Main Sequence:
Eventually, the core temperature of a star will reach the point that fusion its core
can begin. This is the process that all stars go through as they convert protons of
hydrogen, through several stages, into atoms of helium. This reaction is
exothermic; it gives off more heat than it requires, and so the core of a main
sequence star releases a tremendous amount of energy.

This energy starts out as gamma rays in the core of the star, but as it takes a long
slow journey out of the star, it drops down in wavelength. All of this light pushes
outward on the star, and counteracts the gravitational force pulling it inward. A
star at this stage of life is held in balance – as long as its supplies of hydrogen fuel
lasts.
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 The life cycle of a Sun-like star, from its birth on the left side of the frame to its evolution into a
red giant on the right after billions of years. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

And how long does it last? It depends on the mass of the star. The least massive
stars, like red dwarfs with half the mass of the Sun, can sip away at their fuel for
hundreds of billions and even trillions of years. Larger stars, like our Sun will
typically sit in the main sequence phase for 10-15 billion years. The largest stars
have the shortest lives, and can last a few billion, and even just a few million years.

Red Giant:
Over the course of its life, a star is converting hydrogen into helium at its core.
This helium builds up and the hydrogen fuel runs out. When a star exhausts its
fuel of hydrogen at its core, its internal nuclear reactions stop. Without this light
pressure, the star begins to contract inward through gravity.

This process heats up a shell of hydrogen around the core which then ignites in
fusion and causes the star to brighten up again, by a factor of 1,000-10,000. This
causes the outer layers of the star to expand outward, increasing the size of the
star many
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the way out to the orbit of the Earth.
The temperature and pressure at the core of the star will eventually reach the
point that helium can be fused into carbon. Once a star reaches this point, it
contracts down and is no longer a red giant. Stars much more massive than our
Sun can continue on in this process, moving up the table of elements creating
heavier and heavier atoms.

White Dwarf:
A star with the mass of our Sun doesn’t have the gravitational pressure to fuse
carbon, so once it runs out of helium at its core, it’s effectively dead. The star will
eject its outer layers into space, and then contract down, eventually becoming a
white dwarf. This stellar remnant might start out hot, but it has no fusion
reactions taking place inside it any more. It will cool down over hundreds of
billions of years, eventually becoming the background temperature of the
Universe.

We have written many articles about the live cycle of stars on Universe Today.
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Survive When the Sun Becomes a Red Giant?, What Is The Future Of Our Sun?
 Want more information on stars? Here’s Hubblesite’s News Releases about Stars,
and more information from NASA’s imagine the Universe.

We have recorded several episodes of Astronomy Cast about stars. Here are two
that you might find helpful: Episode 12: Where Do Baby Stars Come From?,
Episode 13: Where Do Stars Go When they Die?, and Episode 108: The Life of the
Sun.

Sources:

• NASA: How Do Stars Form and Evolve?

• NASA: The Life and Death of Stars

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