Life Cycle Of Stars Research Paper

The Life Cycle of Stars
The life cycle of a star is an incredible, miraculous phenomenon that begins with just two elements: helium and hydrogen. The result is the all well known star that is seen twinkling in the night sky and also what lights up the day here on Earth. There are hundreds upon thousands of stars that take on many different sizes and colors. Depending on the size of the star from its birth, the star could take two paths at the end of its life: turn into a nebula leaving behind a white dwarf, or the star could burst in a fierce supernova explosion. Either road the star chooses to go on, determined by the mass of course, the process still takes billions of years. The life cycle of a star, although lengthy, is the rawest and most pure process in the entire universe that begins from two elements and ends in peaceful serenity or a fiery explosion. …show more content…
“Stellar nebulas are the birth places of stars,” (Ryan). These gigantic clouds of gas and dust are the remains of stars that have been formed previously and that have undergone the entire life cycle (Ryan). Now of course these huge gas and dust clouds do not just stay gas and dust clouds. The stellar nebulas, “own gravity causes [itself] to start to collapse, it folds in on itself, and towards the center of that cloud it gets denser,” (Institute of Physics). As the cloud folds in on itself and the particles get closer and closer, they start to stick together, fuse, and form clumps (Institute of Physics). If there are dense enough clumps in this nebula, they will begin a process known as fusion (Ryan). Fusion is the “process of merging atoms together to create energy,” (Vocabulary.com). During the fusion of hydrogen and helium atoms, light and heat are created (Ryan). Fusion “creates the energy that powers every star,” (Institute of