A star’s higher calling is to produce life. A first-generation star starts with carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, potassium, and four trace elements. Then, gravity puts the pressure on. We are the chemical legacy of the stars. Our reason for being is in the stars.
Stars are born in giant, cold clouds of gas and dust called nebulae. A star is maintained once it becomes hot enough for fusion reactions to take place at its core. For example, the Sun is halfway through its life as a main-sequence star and will swell up to form a red giant star in around 4.5 billion years.
A star is born by the gravitational collapse of a cloud of dust and gas. If the condensing spherical mass cannot grow large enough, it slowly gets colder and fades, becoming a brown dwarf. If it grows enough to sustain hydrogen fusion, a main-sequence star, like our sun, is formed.
There are only three nucleosynthetic astrophysical sites: 1. big bang nucleosynthesis, where hydrogen and helium are produced. 2. Stars, where all elements from carbon to uranium are synthesized. 3. Interstellar medium in galaxies where lithium, beryllium, and boron are made non-thermal.
It would help if you remembered that all things are triune with binary interactives.
Stages and timescales depend on mass (a little bit of composition dependence). Massive stars evolve quicker than yellow stars. Main sequence lifetime = fuel / consumption rate.
Stars are born in giant, cold clouds of gas and dust called nebulae.
A star is born once it becomes hot enough for fusion reactions to take place at its core.
Stars spend most of their lives as main sequence stars fusing hydrogen to helium in their centers.
The Sun is halfway through its life as a main-sequence star and will swell up to form a red giant star in around 4.5 billion years.
Stars similar to the Sun end their lives as planetary nebulae and leave behind a tiny hot white dwarf star at the center of the planetary nebula.
A quasar has the energy of a million stars.
After the first evolvement of stars (Hydrogen and helium ones), they’re unstable and short-lived. When they bang out, long-life stars are born containing lighter elements, including iron. Some become super-novas when they flash out; they have forged the heavier elements, up to and including uranium. Supernovas are the cosmic chefs that make the recipe for life. Supernova stuff is us. We are baked in the oven of a supernova. The four main ingredients that make us are Hydrogen, 70% of our mass; Carbon is the baking flour, Nitrogen, and oxygen.
Carbon is the backbone of all life. Every cell is mostly carbon. Trees, plants, and animals all are carbon-based too. Nitrogen’s ammonia grows our foods, which also are carbon-based. Calcium also is necessary and needed. Phosphorous is also a requirement for life (bones, teeth, etc.)
The Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) molecule is the nucleotide known in biochemistry as the “molecular currency” of intracellular energy transfer; that is, ATP can store and transport chemical energy within cells. ATP also plays an essential role in the synthesis of nucleic acids. Sulfer is a requirement for all living cells. Blood and proteins are significant users of iron.
Copper and zinc too…The list goes on.
We consume star stuff. We are children of the stars.
