What determines the path a star takes in its life?

What determines the path a star takes in its life?

A star’s life cycle is determined by its mass. The larger its mass, the shorter its life cycle. A star’s mass is determined by the amount of matter that is available in its nebula, the giant cloud of gas and dust from which it was born.

What determines the characteristics of a star?

Characteristics used to classify stars include color, temperature, size, composition, and brightness. Stars vary in their chemical composition. Astronomers use spectrographs to determine the elements found in stars.

What is the one characteristic of a star that will have the biggest determination on its life?

The overall lifespan of a star is determined by its mass. Since stars spend roughly 90% of their lives burning hydrogen into helium on the main sequence (MS), their ‘main sequence lifetime’ is also determined by their mass.

What two characteristics of a star did Hertzsprung and Russell compare the HR diagram?

Answer: ExplaThe characteristics that are used in order to classify the stars on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram are size, density, temperature, and absolute brightness.

What distinguishes main sequence stars from other stars?

Main sequence stars provide their energy by fusing hydrogen atoms together to produce helium. The more massive a star is, the more energy it requires to counteract its own gravity. Massive hydrogen-burning stars are blue-white, the Sun is yellow, and low-mass stars are orange and red.

What are the characteristics of a constellation?

A constellation is a group of visible stars that form a pattern when viewed from Earth. The pattern they form may take the shape of an animal, a mythological creature, a man, a woman, or an inanimate object such as a microscope, a compass, or a crown.

How are the characteristics of a star determined?

The initial mass of a star could determine many of its characteristics. Qualities such as size, luminosity, and lifespan depend on a star’s initial mass. Many stars are ten or less billion years old. The oldest discovered is about 13,200,000]

How does the mass of a star affect its life?

The more mass a star starts out with, the brighter and hotter it will be. For a star, everything depends on its mass. Throughout their lives, stars fight the inward pull of the force of gravity.

What makes a star visible at the end of its life?

A star is a large mass of plasma matter held together by gravitational forces. Near the end of its life a star can also have a significant portion of degenerate matter. Sun is the star nearest Earth. At night other stars become visible when not obscured by the Sun’s light or atmospheric interference.

What are the names of the life cycles of stars?

Using the text, and any external printed references, define the following terms: protostar, life cycle, main sequence star, red giant, white dwarf, black dwarf, supernova, neutron star, pulsar, black hole, fusion, element, isotope, X-ray, gamma-ray.