After going through this lesson, you

are expected to:

Lesson 1 – Stellar
1. explain stellar Nucleosynthesis:
nucleosynthesis; Rise of the Stars
2. describe the different stages
of life cycle of stars;
3. cite the different heavy
elements formed in each stages
of star cycle
Have you
ever
wondered
how the stars
made?
What keeps
them shine so
bright?
The world where we live today is just a
small part of our universe. have learned
different theories about the origin
of the universe that led to the formation
of galaxies, solar system and other
heavenly bodies. This lesson will focus
on one of those wonderful things in
outer space, the stars. Although stars
are millions of light years away from
us, we can still see them twinkling in
the night sky. Let’s find out how they
emit light and what keeps them shining
for a long time.
Big Bang Theory
EDWIN HUBBLE
discovered that
the galaxies are
moving away
from each other
at high speeds
 The Big Bang theory states that
the universe was formed about
13.7 billion years ago. This event
started from a very dense and hot
matter. This matter expanded and
started to cool down, going
through different transitional
phases. The universe has been
expanding ever since.
The leftover matter is in the form of electrons, protons and
neutrons. As the temperature continues to drop, protons and
neutrons can undergo fusion to form heavier atomic nuclei.
This process is called nucleosynthesis.
 Right after Big Bang, protons and
neutrons combined and formed light

elements Hydrogen and Helium through

the process of Big Bang

Nucleosynthesis. Other light elements

such as Lithium and Beryllium were
also formed during this process.
Its harder and harder to make nuclei with higher
masses. So the most common substance in the
Universe is hydrogen (one proton), followed by
helium, lithium, beryllium and boron (the first
elements on the periodic table). Isotopes are
formed, such as deuterium and tritium, but these
elements are unstable and decay into free
protons and neutrons.
Stellar Nucleosynthesis
The word “stellar” means star and the
formation of elements in the center of
the star is called stellar nucleosynthesis.
Carl Sagan said that “We are made of star
stuff.”
What did he mean by that?
Stages of a Star
Every star begins life by moving through four
stages:

1.Star formation in a cosmic nursery known as a

nebula
2.Childhood as a protostar
3.Ignition into a main sequence star
4. Cooling off and expansion as a red giant
Nebulas—huge clouds of gas between the stars.
Nebulas are also where stars are
born. Stars form inside nebulas
because nebulas contain lots of
hydrogen, the gas stars are mostly
made of. Within nebulas, gravity
pulls clumps of hydrogen together.
Because the gravity of any object,
including a ball of hydrogen, grows
as it gets bigger, those clumps
start attracting more and more gas.
Over long periods of time, they
draw so much gas to themselves that
they become round and condense into
a protostar.
Protostars are huge clumps of
gas and dust that aren’t quite
hot enough to achieve fusion
in their core. A protostar
starts off looking like a cloud,
but as gravity pulls it tighter
and tighter together, it heats
up and begins to glow.
Eventually the star reaches 15
million degrees Fahrenheit, so
hot that the hydrogen atoms
in its core begin fusing into
helium.
Once a star begins fusion, it
becomes much more stable and
enters the main sequence of its
life cycle.The incredible amount
of energy it releases stops gravity
from pulling it any tighter
together. As long as it has enough
hydrogen in its core to keep
fusion going, a star stays in the
main sequence.

The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram

shows how different stars can
look while still remaining in this
stage of their lives.
Red Giant
After a star runs out of hydrogen,
its life changes dramatically. The
fusion reaction that kept it in the
main sequence for billions of
years ends. The star begins fusing
helium into carbon instead, and
this nuclear reaction makes its
outer layers so hot that they
begin fusing hydrogen, which
expands them. A star in the red
giant stage can be several hundred
times larger than it was in the
main sequence
How Stars Die
Although all stars are born the same way, how
they die depends on their size. Most stars run
out of fuel and become white dwarfs, but a few
generate massive explosions so big they can be
seen with the naked eye. The biggest stars turn
into black holes—spheres of matter so dense
that not even light can escape their gravity.
White Dwarfs
In stars up to one and a half times more massive
than the Sun, the star’s core eventually runs out
of helium to fuse into carbon. Its outer layers
blow away into space one at a time over about
10,000 years and become a planetary nebula.
What’s left of the star becomes a small white
dwarf at the nebula’s center. White dwarfs are
very hot at first, but over billions of years they
cool off until they become black dwarfs and no
longer shine.
In this image of the planetary nebula IC 5148, the
white dwarf that created the nebula is so hot it
looks blue-white. Eventually it will cool and
appear white.
 Supergiants and Supernovas
It if small stars die with a whisper, large ones
die with a bang. During the red giant stage,
they become supergiants, some of the largest
stars in the sky. Then they explode in a
supernova.
Supergiants live short, brilliant lives. They can
shine up to a million times as brightly as the
Sun, but may only last for a million years. Their
temperatures are so extreme that all kinds of
fusion happens inside them—not just
hydrogen into helium and helium into carbon,
but carbon into many heavier elements.
Fusion continues until the supergiant’s core
becomes iron.
Black Holes and Neutron Stars
If a star is massive enough (at least one-and-
a-half times as massive as the Sun), its core
can survive a supernova and become
something very different: a neutron star or a
black hole.

Neutron stars are really, really dense.

They’re about the same size as a city—12
miles or so across—but they pack half a
million Earths’ worth of matter into that
space. Although that creates a lot of gravity,
radiation can still escape them. Astronomers
can see neutron stars when they emit X-
rays or a strong magnetic field
Black holes, on the other hand,
are created when stars at least
three times as massive as the
Sun die. They’re so dense that
their gravity traps all radiation,
from radio waves to visible
light to X-rays and beyond.
Most black holes are relatively
small, but at the center of
every galaxy is a supermassive
black hole, which contains as
much mass as millions or
billions of stars!
Look at the diagrams below in order to understand how stars are formed into
different stages because of nuclear fusion (combination of nuclei to form heavier
one) among heavy elements
How do elements heavier than Iron form?
As the energy at the core of the star
decreases, nuclear fusion cannot produce
elements
higher than Iron. A different pathway is
needed for heavier elements to be formed.
Neutron capture, a neutron is added to a
seed nucleus.
Neutron capture, a neutron is added to a seed nucleus.
Below is the representation of how neutron is
captured, and a heavier nucleus is formed
Neutron capture can be slow or rapid;
a. S-process or slow process happens when there is a
slow rate of capturing neutron while there is a faster
rate of radioactive decay hence increasing the proton by 1.
b. R-process or rapid process means that there is faster
rate of capturing neutron before it undergoes radioactive
decay thus, more neutrons can be combined in the nucleus.
This is what happens in a supernova forming heavier elements
than Iron with the process known as supernova
nucleosynthesis
The explosion of star or supernova is believed to
be the source of other elements heavier than
Iron. During the explosion, these heavy elements
are dispersed into the space. Aside from
Hydrogen and Helium in space, other evidence of
star formation is the energy emitted during
nuclear reaction which includes ultraviolet,
infrared, X-ray, radio wave and microwave.
Thank You