Stellar

Nucleosynthesis
Star
 Stellar
Evolution
Stellar
Nebula
•Formed moments after the
bigbang.
•Hundreds of years later,
hydrogen gas clouds coalesce
and develop protostars.
Average
Star
•Less than 3x the mass of the sun.
•Powered by nuclear fusion in
their cores, mostly converting
hydrogen into helium and
liberating tremendous amounts
of energy.
Massive
Star
•More than 3x the mass of the
sun.
•Rigel, the brightest star in the
constellation called Orion and
is also one of the brightest
stars.
Red
Giant
• As medium sized stars exhaust their
hydrogen content, they expand up to 100x
the original size to become red giants.
• The reactions occurred within this star
are: H He and He C.
• This is an Aldebaran, a star in the
constellation, Taurus.
Super
Giant
•The element factories of the
universe.
•The reactions occurred are:
H He, He C, C Ne,
Ne O, O Si, and Si Fe.
•Betelguese is a super red
giant star in the
constellation, Orion.
•20x as massive as the sun.
Planetary
Nebula
•A huge shell of gas ejected during
the last stage (red giant) of the life
of a medium star.
•Some light elements (including
carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and
neon) are present.
•It evolves into a white dwarf star.
Supernova
•Final stage in the life of massive
stars.
•Extremely high level of energy
allows further fusion reactions
producing Heavy Element like :
Gold, Silver and Uranium.
White
Dwarf
•A small very dense,
and hot star that is
made mostly of
carbon.
Neutron
Star
• Stars with a mass between 1.5 and 3x the
mass of the sun will end up as neutron
stars.
• A very small, super dense star that is
composed mostly of tightly packed
neutrons.
• A rapidly spinning neutron star is called
Pulsar.
Black
Holes
•A massive object in space that
is so dense that within a
certain distance, the
gravitational field does not let
anything escape from it-not
even light.