STAR BIRTH

Star Birth

Star Birth

Cosmologists believe universe was created 15 billion years to "Big Bang", the cosmic explosion that gave rise to an expanding cloud of two lightest elements, hydrogen and helium gases. At that time there were no other items. Where there was a dense knot that contains higher concentrations of gases, mutual gravitational attraction of gas molecules led to growth of first generation stars. As more and more material fell into the new star, pressure at its center, eventually became large enough to begin process of nuclear fusion, in which nuclei of hydrogen and helium fuse to form heavier elements. This was accompanied by release of energy, which made star begins to shine and, in turn stop gravitational collapse of star. star is now in equilibrium.

Birth of the new star fire can be very dramatic as in example shown above XZ Tauri and HH 30 Jet right. After birth, star enters the new phase of existence where he has been the rather quiet life as the resident of galaxy. (Hawking 1988)

Finally, all hydrogen, helium, and products that could be used to generate power at core of star, were exhausted, and nuclear furnace was extinguished. Outer layers of star could not resist central force of gravity; it was pulling star's outer material into its core. What happened next depends on mass of star. In some cases it fell to white dwarf, the dim object size of the planet that is extremely dense, as it retains most of its initial mass. Extreamly suffer the massive star core collapse catastropic, violent explosion and quickly as the supernova, creating even heavier elements, and throwing most of stellar material into space.

In other cases, death of the star was slower, instead of an explosion; elements of interior areas of star rose to surface and then lost in space when he flew outer layers. Final results were similar: space between stars was enriched with heavy elements, many of which condensed to form small solid grains. Processes of birth and death of stars came again and again, with each generation of stars, starting with the higher amount of heavy elements than previous generation. (Gribbin 2001)

Eagle Nebula [more]

Lagoon Nebula [more]

Orion Nebula [more]

Scientists believe sun and our solar system was formed almost simultaneously out of solar nebula - an enriched interstellar gas and dust cloud that exists in our solar system now live. Theory of order of events for ...