A guide to stars

                                           A guide to Stars

            We all see stars in the night sky. We even see a star in the morning: the Sun. But, what are they made of? What kind of star is our sun? How are they born? When do they die? All this and more will be explained in this article: A guide to stars. Explore the world of stars in the night sky, the planets revolving, and the brightness of some of the stars.

            A star is formed when very dense interstellar gas and dust combine. They are very cold, and can reach up to -263 degrees Celsius. When this has so much mass it collapses in on itself, forming a star. The remaining clumps either join with the newly formed star or form planets and asteroid belts. The brightest star in the night sky is Sirius. It is a huge blue star, and even though it is hundreds or thousands of light years away, it is still the brightest star in the night sky. (BYJU’S)

            The smallest stars in the universe are Red dwarfs, which have very low mass. The smallest stars also live the longest. The bigger the stars get, the shorter their life’s span. These stars can live from 1 to 5 trillion years. This means that from the beginning of the universe, not a single red dwarf has died yet. On the contrary, all of them are still babies. All stars are made of hydrogen, which fuse into helium.

Our sun is not a red dwarf, so its lifespan is a little shorter. It will live for 5 billion more years. This is quite a long time. But, way before this, after maybe 1 or 2 billion years, the sun will start to swell as it has used up all its hydrogen. It will become a red giant, and swell until it swallows everything up to the asteroid belt. We need not worry, since it is a long, long way into the future before it happens.

The biggest stars in the universe live only for a few billion years. At the end of their life, they will swell into a red supergiant, whose diameter can be as big as the orbit of Neptune. The biggest one so far is UY Scuti.

These are fascinating objects in the universe, which are quite big. Did you know, that the Sun has 99.86% of the mass in the solar system?

Sources used

·      BYJU’S

·      Space.com

·      Wikipedia