How do stars form?
My younger brother yesterday asked me that how do stars form. As an space enthusiast I answered him and thought why not share the same with you? Here it is: How do stars form?
Stars are like huge balls of fire that emit a tremendous amount of heat, light and energy. Of course, they are the one which light up our night sku. Stars don't form in a few seconds, minutes or hours. Star formation process is so slow that it can take millions of years, you read right, millions of years.
A star begins its life inside vast molecular clouds of dust and gas. These molecular clouds are also known as nebulae or dark nebulae. They mostly contain hydrogen and helium molecules along with some other particles. Normally, these molecular clouds are cold and stable. However, a nearby supernova explosion or galactic collision may send a shockwave or tremendous amount of energy through a molecular cloud. Any other event which may cause gravitational disturbances in the cloud can also make the cloud unstable.
Now, in the molecular cloud, this energy causes a gravitational disturbance due to which it begins to collapse on itself under its own gravity, causing hydrogen and helium to clump together and thus, increasing the mass in the center of the cloud. This increase in mass, increases the gravitational pull, thus attracting even more molecules and particles from the surrounding. As more and more molecules and particles collapse or fall into the center of the cloud, the center begins to heat up. This heated center or heated core is known as a protostar. Protostar is the first stage of a forming star.
A protostar continues to pull more molecules and gets hotter and hotter until the temperature and pressure reach to such an extent that hydrogen nuclei begin to fuse with one another producing helium and releasing heat, light and radiation.
You guessed right. This process called nuclear fusion. When this happens, the inward force of gravity is exactly balanced by the outward force created by heat and radiation. These inward and outward forces maintain balance and thus, a star is born.
This process is as complex as it sounds. And the fact that about 400 million stars born per day or 4800 stars per second, does hold true however it sounds contradicting. So you can imagine how powerful is our universe...
Posts before October 2021 have been marked as "Old Posts". Less likely, but they might have out dated or incorrect information, ugly looking bits of code, no labels, etc. Don't get me wrong, many of these posts are top-notch and interesting too.
I thought it would be better not to delete or revamp these posts, even if they suck. The bitter truth is that old works always suck, but I take that as a positive tool to convey that I am growing. Besides there's no better way to showcase my journey without these old, messy, poorly written posts!
I thought it would be better not to delete or revamp these posts, even if they suck. The bitter truth is that old works always suck, but I take that as a positive tool to convey that I am growing. Besides there's no better way to showcase my journey without these old, messy, poorly written posts!
Old Post