Instead, it gives off thermal radiation that can be visible to scientists. It does not give off light thanks to fusion, like most stars. Typically the size of Earth, a white dwarf has the same mass as a star in a much smaller package, making it incredibly dense. The resulting star core is called a white dwarf. Simba would be proud.īut, that compression from the collapse of a star also causes the core to become super dense. Thus, a supernova is a part of the circle of celestial life. The resulting cloud of debris forms a nebula, which we talked about recently. It scatters the fundamental building blocks of the universe that form the core of most stars: hydrogen, helium, carbon. Imagine something one million times the mass of Earth collapsing in 15 seconds! The collapse happens so quickly that it creates enormous shock waves that cause the outer part of the star to explode!”Īll that energy exploding out does a few things. Gravity wins out, and the star suddenly collapses. When a massive star runs out of fuel, it cools off.
This outward push resists the inward squeeze of gravity. But the nuclear fuel burning in the star’s core creates strong outward pressure. The star’s gravity tries to squeeze the star into the smallest, tightest ball possible. Heat generates pressure, and the pressure created by a star’s nuclear burning also keeps that star from collapsing.Ī star is in balance between two opposite forces. This produces tons of energy, so the center gets very hot. “Massive stars burn huge amounts of nuclear fuel at their cores, or centers. But the main one is that the forces that balance out this giant object fall into an imbalance. When a star “burns out,” many things can happen. The difference is that when a fire exhausts its fuel, it doesn’t blow up into something multiples of its original size, nor does it collapse back on itself to form super-dense matter. Just like a fire, though, stars will eventually burn through their fuel supply.
But they’re also giant chemical reactions.
#Sun went nova meaning full#
They are born, live full lives, and then they die. In this series, we’ll take a quick tour through a science or space topic and give you an overview with cool pictures. Though the center is closed temporarily, we are still passionate about science and space. Space is big! Science is cool! Let’s talk about it.
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