⭐ Category: Star Formation
This large cloud of gas and dust is where stars are born.
What is a nebula?
Our Sun is in this major stage of a star’s life cycle.
What is the main sequence?
These stars are much larger and brighter than red giants and form from high-mass stars.
What are red supergiants?
A low- or medium-mass star eventually sheds its outer layers to form this colorful cloud.
What is a planetary nebula?
This property of a star determines everything about its life cycle.
What is mass?
Gravity causes gas and dust in a nebula to contract, forming this early stage of a star.
What is a protostar?
In main-sequence stars, hydrogen fuses into this element.
What is helium?
As a star becomes a red giant, its size does this while the surface temperature decreases.
What is it expands?
After forming a planetary nebula, the core left behind becomes this hot, dense object.
What is a white dwarf?
The diagram used to classify stars by temperature and brightness.
What is the H–R diagram?
This force pulls particles together during star formation.
What is gravity?
This property determines how long a star will remain in the main-sequence stage.
What is its mass?
High-mass stars become these massive, bright stars before exploding.
What are red supergiants?
A high-mass star ends its life in this violent explosion.
What is a supernova?
The process that powers all stars and releases tremendous energy
What is nuclear fusion?
These shockwaves—often created by nearby supernovas—can trigger the collapse of a nebula and start star formation.
What are shockwaves from a supernova? or What are shockwaves?
The brightness of a main-sequence star is mainly determined by this property.
What is its mass?
In a red super giant, what is the element with the most mass that the giant can make before exploding
What is iron?
The extremely dense object left after some supernovas, made almost entirely of neutrons. (hint: MELT
What is a neutron star?
This type of star lives the longest because it burns fuel very slowly.
What is a low-mass star?
A protostar becomes a true star once this process begins in the core.
What is nuclear fusion?
These stars spend the longest portion of their lives in the main-sequence stage.
What are low-mass stars?
A star becomes a red giant when it runs out of this in its core.
What is hydrogen?
The strongest gravitational objects in the universe, formed from very massive collapsing cores.
What are black holes?
This is the reason high-mass stars have much shorter lifespans than low-mass stars.
What is they burn fuel faster?