The Deaths of Stars

Low-mass stars
A low-mass star is one of mass ranging form 0.4M and lower.
These red dwarfs will fuse all of there hydrogen into helium.
The core of these stars are not hot enough to fuse helium.

So they will just be a ball of helium that gets cooler over time.

Red Dwarf
After nuclear fusion stops in the core of a red dwarf in is considered a
dead star.
We call these dead stars white dwarfs.
The universe is about 13.8 billion years old, but remember a red
dwarf will take trillions of years to use all of its hydrogen.
Therefore no red dwarf star has become a white dwarf.

White Dwarf
A white dwarf is a dead star that no longer can fuse elements.
White dwarfs are small and faint.

Low and intermediate-mass stars will become white dwarfs.

They are very dense, for example when our Sun becomes a white dwarf it
will have about the same mass but be as small as the Earth.
A white dwarf will get cooler until it no longer gives off light, we then refer
to it as a black dwarf.

Black Dwarf
A black dwarf is a white dwarf that has gotten so cold it no longer
gives off any significant light or heat.

Intermediate-mass stars
An intermediate-mass star is one of mass ranging from 0.4 8 M .
When a star of this size uses up all the hydrogen in the core fusion in
the core stops, but it is hot enough so that a shell around the sore
begins hydrogen fusion and the star grows into a giant.

Eventually the core gets hot enough to begin fusing helium into
carbon and oxygen.

Red Giant

Intermediate-mass stars
Once the red giant star has fused its core of helium into carbon and
oxygen it is not hot enough to fuse these elements any further.
The time the star has spent as a giant pressure from the inner layer is
greater than gravity. As a result gas from the surface is sent out into
space.

When the star losses enough mass all fusion will stop. The carbon and
oxygen core will remain as a white dwarf surrounded by gas and dust
of the outer layers called a planetary nebula.

Planetary Nebula

High-mass stars
A high-mass star is one of mass ranging from 8M and greater.
When these stars run out of hydrogen to fuse in the core they
become giants, but these are hot enough to fuse carbon and even
heavier elements.

So these massive stars will have cores with multilayers.

High-mass stars
When a red supergiant gets to having an iron core fusion stops. The
core can no longer support the weight and collapses
When this collapse starts it only takes a few second for the star to get
torn apart in a massive explosion called a supernova.

After the supernova there are two possibilities for the star. It can
become a neutron star or a black hole.

Supernova
Supernova are very bright and large explosions.
The brightest supernova observed was observed to give off as much
energy as a hundred billion stars.
A supernova happens about every 44 years.

Supernova Remnants
After a supernova a large nebula full of gas and dust of heavier
elements and metals remains.

Neutron Star
A neutron star is a very compact ball of neutrons that results from the
gravitational collapse of a star of mass 8 to 25 M after a supernova.
Neutron stars are the very dense, with a radius of only about 7 miles, and
mass of about 1.25 to 3 M.
A teaspoon full of neutron star matter would weigh 1 billion tons on Earth.
Thats about the same weight as 143,000,000 elephants.
A pulsar (short for pulsating radio star) is a highly magnetized, rotating
neutron star that emits a beam of electromagnetic radiation.

Pulsar

Black Hole
A black hole is an region of space that has so much gravity that nothing can
escape it, not even light the fastest thing in the universe.
A neutron star still has very strong gravity and will continue to collect gas
and dust on its surface. If the neutron star gets bigger than about 3 M it
will become a black hole.
A star greater than 25 M will not become a neutron star and directly
become a black hole.
Very massive black holes are located at the center of most galaxies.

Black Hole

Schwarzschild Black Hole

This type of black hole has three main parts, and does not rotate.
Singularity: located at the center, this is where all the mass is located
in a infinity small single point.
Event horizon: the edge of the black hole. Anything crossing the event
horizon will be pulled into the center and can never escape.
Schwarzschild radius: the distance from the center to the event
horizon.

Falling into a Black Hole

An object falling into a black hole will stretch, and time will slow
down for the object as viewed by an observer far away.
If you are watching something falling into a black hole, when it gets
near the event horizon time will appear to stop for the object and the
object will appear to be there falling in for ever.
As gasses fall toward a black hole they get super heated and give of xrays near the event horizon. This is one way we detect them.

Black Hole Evaporation

Black holes dont last forever. Proposed by Stephen Hawking black
holes mass can be converted to energy in a process called virtual
particle production.
A black hole of 5 M would take more than 1026 years to evaporate.

Eventually all black holes will evaporate into energy.