- Very high-core temperatures.
- Crushing stellar-core pressures.
- Very big and very bright,
- Ends its stellar life with a bang.
What are the characteristics of a massive star?
Any star which is larger than eight solar masses during its regular main sequence lifetime is considered a massive star. They typically have a quick main sequence phase, a short red supergiant phase, and
a spectacular death via a supernova explosion
.
What are three characteristics of a high mass star?
High mass stars (stars with masses greater than three times the mass of the Sun) are the largest,
hottest and brightest Main Sequence stars and blue
, blue-white or white in colour. High mass stars use up their hydrogen fuel very rapidly and consequently have short lives.
What characteristics differentiates high mass stars from low mass stars?
Then unlike low mass stars, they
have enough mass that gravity contracts the core raising the temperature and carbon can fuse into neon
, then neon into oxygen, then oxygen into silicon, then iron. Each stage of burning lasts a shorter time than the previous one.
What is a high mass star?
High-mass stars are
very luminous and short lived
. They forge heavy elements in their cores, explode as supernovas, and expel these elements into space. Apart from hydrogen and helium, most of the elements in the universe, including those comprising Earth and everything on it, came from these stars.
What are examples of high mass stars?
An example of a high-mass star is
the red supergiant Betelgeuse
; it is 500 times the size of our Sun. This supernova occurred about 168,000 ly from Earth. High-mass stars have lives of 10 million years, versus 10 to 50 billion years or more for low-mass stars.
How does a high mass star start?
Like low-mass stars, high-mass stars are
born in nebulae and evolve and live in the Main Sequence
. … A massive star will undergo a supernova explosion. If the remnant of the explosion is 1.4 to about 3 times as massive as our Sun, it will become a neutron star.
What is the most massive star known?
R136a1
. The star R136a1 currently holds the record as the most massive star known to exist in the universe. It’s more than 265 times the mass of our Sun, more than double most stars on this list. Astronomers are still trying to understand how the star can even exist.
What is the difference between a giant star and a supergiant star?
A giant star is a star with substantially larger radius and luminosity than
a main-sequence (or dwarf) star
of the same surface temperature. … Stars still more luminous than giants are referred to as supergiants and hypergiants.
What is the difference between a massive star and an average star?
The average star, like our own, turns into
a white dwarf
. A massive star becomes either a neutron star or black hole.
What are 3 similarities of low mass and high mass stars?
Low mass stars and high mass stars share similarities and differences. One of the similarities is they
both start the same way
, with a huge collection of gases, primarily hydrogen and helium. Another similarity would be the way they generate their energy, through a process known as nuclear fusion.
What are the phases of a high mass star?
The exact stages of evolutions are:
Subgiant
Branch (SGB) – hydrogen shell burning – outer layers swell. Red Giant Branch – helium ash core compresses – increased hydrogen shell burning. First Dredge Up – expanding atmosphere cools star – stirs carbon, nitrogen and oxygen upward – star heats up.
Where are high mass stars found?
Located
in the constellation of Orion
, about 427 light years from the sun. One of the only stars for which we can actually measure its radius – 650 solar radii. During the final stages of a high-mass star’s life, iron builds up in the core. Elements lighter than iron release energy through nuclear fusion.
How long do high mass stars live?
The most massive stars can burn out and explode in a supernova after only
a few million years of fusion
. A star with a mass like the Sun, on the other hand, can continue fusing hydrogen for about 10 billion years.
How does a high mass star end its life?
How does a high-mass star die? degeneracy pressure can no longer resist gravity.
collapses, creating a supernova explosion
. away because electrons combine with protons, making neutrons and neutrinos.
Is the sun a high mass star?
So
the Sun is a low-mass star
. All such stars follow the same basic pattern. The next higher category, intermediate-mass stars, have masses from 2 to 8 solar masses. The lives of these stars really is not so different from low-mass stars, so we will discuss both low- and intermediate-mass stars together.
