Sun-like Stars
The star at the center of our solar system.
What is the Sun?
These stars have more mass than the Sun.
What are high-mass stars?
The diagram used to compare stars' temperature and luminosity.
What is the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram?
A star is around 3000 degrees Kelvin. What color is it?
What is red?
The cloud of gas and dust where stars begin forming.
What is a nebula?
The stage the Sun enters after leaving the main sequence.
What is the red giant stage?
The explosive event that can occur near the end of a massive star's life.
What is a supernova?
The region where most stars spend their lives.
What is the main sequence?
A star is hot and bright. Where might it appear on the H–R diagram?
Where is the upper-left region, generally?
The stage when a star fuses hydrogen into helium for most of its life.
What is the main sequence?
The name of a compact stellar remnant left after a Sun-like star goes through a planetary nebula.
What is a white dwarf?
The remnant of a massive star with a mass < 3 solar masses after a supernova.
What is a neutron star?
The direction in which temperature increases on a standard H–R diagram.
What is to the left?
A star is hot but dim. What type of star might it be?
What is a white dwarf?
The stage between a nebula and a stable main-sequence star.
What is a protostar?
The sequence of stages from the Sun's current phase to its final stage.
What is main sequence → red giant → planetary nebula → white dwarf?
Why do massive stars generally have shorter lifetimes than low-mass stars?
They use their fuel more rapidly because of their higher core temperatures and pressures.
What does a star's position in the upper-right region generally tell you about its temperature and luminosity?
It is relatively cool and very luminous.
Two stars have the same temperature, but one is more luminous. What can that suggest about its radius?
What is a larger radius?
The force that pulls a forming star's material inward.
What is gravity?
Explain why the Sun will not end its life as a black hole.
The Sun does not have enough mass to collapse into a black hole; it will end as a white dwarf.
The two possible compact remnants of a massive star after a supernova.
What are a neutron star and a black hole?
Why can a white dwarf be hot but have low luminosity?
Its small surface area limits its total luminosity.
A star is cool but extremely luminous. What does this suggest about its size and likely classification?
It likely has a very large radius and is a red giant or red supergiant.
Put these stages in order: white dwarf, nebula, red giant, main sequence, planetary nebula.
Nebula → main sequence → red giant → planetary nebula → white dwarf.