One day the universe will turn dark forever as the last star fizzles out and that star will most likely be a red dwarf. When a red dwarf star forms it possesses important properties that give it the potential to host rocky planets similar to Earth. Therefore the creation and resulting properties of red dwarfs form stars that can provide energy to planets which may one day be hospitable to life forms. First the process of formation of red dwarfs will be explained. Then, the properties of these stars will be examined. Finally, the importance of red dwarf stars’ existence will be considered.
Of all the stars in our universe, red dwarfs comprise up to seventy percent. “Scientists think that 20 out of the 30 stars nearest to Earth are red dwarfs; however, none of them can be seen with the naked eye. The closest star
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It all began with clouds of dust and gas. Within these clouds gravity caused matter to be drawn to the center and this newly formed mass started to spin. As it continued to rotate progressively faster and faster the temperature of the core rose until fusion occurred. This process happens with all main-sequence stars but what makes red dwarfs special is the way in which they fuse hydrogen and helium. Since red dwarfs fuse differently than all other stars they have distinctive properties that make them unique and important to study.
If the fusion of hydrogen into helium of red dwarfs’ was any less they would not be classified as a red dwarf at all. Instead, they would be brown dwarfs which are not stars since they cannot sustain hydrogen fusion. More massive stars accumulate hydrogen and helium in their cores while red dwarfs are convective. This means the helium and hydrogen are constantly mixing throughout the entire mass of the of a red dwarf
When stars died, chemicals other than hydrogen and helium formed, which led to the next level of complexity—Heavier Chemical Element. Most stars spent about 90% of their life over billions of years on during protons and hydrogen nuclei into helium nuclei. When they run out of fuel, the furnace at the center of the star stopped supporting the star, and gravity took over. Small stars did not have much pressure at the center. They burned hydrogen slowly over billions of years at relatively low temperatures. When they died, they would slowly fade away. However, great stars had so much mass that they can create enormous pressures and temperature, and when the giant stars ran out of hydrogen, the temperature got cranked up even higher, which led the star to collapse. The high temperature that the collapse caused was able to make helium nuclei fuse into nuclei of carbon. When a star used up its helium, it collapsed again, and the cycle started over. The star heated up and began to fuse carbon to form
A red dwarf star is considered to be a great spot for life because of its potential for long term habitability. For earth, the habitable zone it resides in lasts only about 7 to 10 billion years. Compare that to a red dwarf, where a habitable zone can last for for a span almost five times greater than that for earth. Thus making a red dwarf a good candidate for life to grow, develop and become advanced. Another point to consider is that many planets orbiting M dwarf, red dwarf stars are highly likely to have large amounts of water which suggests the idea that there could be many habitable planets surrounding a red dwarf star. However, red dwarf stars have a few big problems. Due to the low luminosity of a red dwarf, planets have to be relatively close for it to be in the known habitable zone. And by being so close, planets face hostile conditions. One condition is the barrage of stellar wind, which could strip a planets atmosphere. Another is that the planet could be tidally locked, so only one side would face the star. Lastly, is that red dwarf stars are emit extreme EUV and X ray
Way out there in space, there are huge clouds of dust and gas and if one of those clouds of dust and gas is massive enough it's own gravity can causes it to start to collapse. When it collapses, it folds itself towards the center of the cloud, then it get denser and denser and hotter and hotter; eventually the particles of that gas and the dust are made up and brought so close together that they start to stick together. Then they start to fuse, thats the energy source of a star. The star switches and begins to shine. Inside every newborn star, hydrogen atoms are fused together to make helium. This process is called fusion and it creates the energy of every star. A star is a luminous sphere of gas producing its own heat and light by nuclear reactions (nuclear fusion).
Scientists have discovered a new planet that they believe may be capable of housing life. LHS 1140 b, the planet in question, is six times heavier than Earth, yet only 1.5 times as large, suggesting that it is an extremely dense ball of metal and rock. LHS 1140 b is ten times closer to its sun than Earth, as well, making the orbit only 25 days. The sun LHS 1140 b orbits, LHS 1140, is an old, dim red dwarf star, 40 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cetus. Everything about it is rather ordinary; red dwarfs are the most common type of star, and the light that LHS 1140 produces is too dim to be spotted with the naked eye.
Most stars, around 70 percent, are red dwarves, which are less massive than the sun. These stars are immortal, to our purposes. Their lives are several orders of magnitude longer than the sun's. There are many more that aren't red dwarves but are still less massive than the sun. Most stars we can see with the naked eye, however, are more massive, and stellar lifetime decreases rapidly with mass. There isn't a red dwarf close enough to be seen naked eye. So most that you see in the
Main Sequence stars make up about 90 percent of the stars in your universe. These stars are ones that are fusing hydrogen into helium at their cores. Our Sun is a Main Sequence Star. To create a Main Sequence star, an interstellar cloud goes through seven evolutionary stages which take approximately 40 to 50 million years.
The amount of fuel and the rate at which nuclear fusion occurs depends on the mass of the star. The mass of a star is the determining factor of how long it lives. A red-dwarf star is a star about half the size of our Sun. Due to its extremely low fusion rate, it is estimated that they could last for 10 trillion years. A medium-sized star like our Sun spends its main sequence stage up to 10 billion years.
(2) Sub-stellar objects with true masses above the limiting mass for thermonuclear fusion of deuterium are brown dwarfs, no matter how they formed nor where they are
Just in case you were confused, brown dwarfs (http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_classroom/cosmic_reference/brown_dwarfs.html) refers to the objects in space that are too big to be planets but also too small to be a star. They are in between the two but are often thought that they form the same way stars do.
This article discusses a new planet that could end up supporting life. This new planet is called Proxima b because it orbits a star called Proxima Centauri. Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf star. Red dwarfs are composed of “a cloud of dust and gas that is drawn together by gravity and begins rotating.” (Reed, 2016) They are called dwarfs because they only weigh “7.5 to 50 percent of the mass of the sun.” (Reed, 2016) Since these stars are small, they only reach up to 6,380 degrees Fahrenheit. Red dwarf stars can last trillions of years. “Their limited light and heat meant that the habitable zone-the region where liquid water could form, and thus life would be considered most likely to evolve.” (Reed, 2016) Proxima Centauri is an example of
All over our galaxy are pockets of space, filled with dust and gas. Some of these clouds are denser than others, and every once and a while, a cloud of this gas begins squeezing together due to its own gravity. This is when a star begins to form. The cloud begins to form into a rotating disk, with the inner section rotating faster than the outer. The center will begin to heat up because of the pressure and thermonuclear reactions start in its center. Eventually, two hydrogen atoms get squeezed together with extreme pressure so that they fuse into one atom of helium, releasing a massive amount of energy, when this happens; the object is now a protostar. As the star ages, it begins to run out of hydrogen, and the star starts to spasm. It is now a subgiant. The
With the mass of around half that of our Sun yet a size just exceeding that of the Earth, white dwarfs have densities of around ~200,000 that of the Earth’s. [1]
For the low-mass stars, the expansion to the red giant phase will begin when about 90% of its hydrogen has been converted to helium. During the contraction of its core, a complicated sequence of events occurs. The shrinkage required to produce the energy radiated by the large giant causes the core to shrink to the dimensions of a white dwarf, while hydrogen continues to burn by nuclear fusion in a thin shell surrounding the core. This shell provides most of the energy that is radiated away by
Main sequence stars like our own sun enduring in a state of nuclear fusion during which they will produce energy for billions of years by replacing hydrogen to helium. Stars change over billions of years. When their main sequence phase ends they pass through other states of existence according to their size and other characteristics. The larger a star's mass, the shorter its lifespan is. As stars move toward the end of their lives, much of their hydrogen will be converted to helium. Helium sinks to the star's core and raises the star's temperature—causing its outer shell to expand. These large, puffy stars are known as Red Giants. The red giant phase is actually a prelude to a star shedding its outer layers and becoming a small, dense body called a White Dwarf. White dwarfs cool down for billions and billions of years, until they finally go dark and produce no energy at all. Once this happens, scientists have yet to observe, such stars become known as Black Dwarfs. A few stars avoid this evolutionary path and instead go out with a bang, exploding as Supernovae. These violent explosions leave behind a small core that will then turn into something called a Neutron Star or even, if the remainder is large enough, it is then turned into something called a Black Hole.
This causes the ball, now a star, to shine. Depending on the mass of the star, they can reach different types of fusion. Normal stars that have a mass of up to 4 times the sun can only have hydrogen fusion, helium fusion, and carbon fission. Stars with a bigger mass is classified as a massive star, and they undergo multiple stages. They start out similar to the normal stars with hydrogen fusion, helium fusion and carbon fission, but continue over to oxygen fusion, and silicon fusion. The end product of Silicon is Iron. No star can fuse Iron, it will die. How much gas and dust is collected during the star’s formation determines the size and colour of the star. As time passes by, stars fight the inward pull of the force of gravity. The outward pressure created by the nuclear reactions pushing away from the star's core keeps the star whole. However, these nuclear reactions require hydrogen. Eventually the supply of hydrogen in the core runs out and the star begins to