Carlos Velazquez

When a мassiʋe star expends its fuel, its core collapses into a dense oƄject and sends the rest of its gas outward in an eʋent called a supernoʋa. What’s left is мostly neutron stars or Ƅlack holes. And now, HuƄƄle seeмs to haʋe seen a supernoʋa Ƅlink out — suggesting it captured the мoмent when a Ƅlack hole took oʋer.



Tim adds:

Most stars simply exhaust their fuel and collapse into white dwarf stars, which burn hot for a million years entirely by granvitational contraction (there is no fuel left to fuse). Some stars, ones bigger than Chandrasekhar's Limit which is 1.44 times the mass of our sun - can become a neutron star, provided they don't burn off too much mass. If it drops below the limit it will be a white dwarf. But really big stars - five solar masses or more - can become black holes if everything works out right. (There is some suggestion that a star with double the mass of the Sun can collapse, but it's still hotly debated.) Some black holes formed during the Big Bang and can be any size though. But if we are talking about collapsers then we usually assume about five or more solar masses. Their formation is generally fairly rare but given the sheer volume of stars out there not uncommon. I would add most stars do not become neutron stars of black holes. Most just die, burned up. Or they supernova and blow off a bunch of mass. But either way it's a fascinating thing.

I wrote about black holes years ago at my old website. See it here.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:00 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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