• Question: How and why does a star die/fail, is it something so do with the build up of gas over millions of years?

    Asked by to Sarah on 16 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Sarah Casewell

      Sarah Casewell answered on 16 Jun 2014:

      Stars are held up against gravity by burning hydrogen into helium. This releases heat which keeps the star inflated. When it runs out of fuel (hydrogen), it can’t keep itself up against gravity and so it collapses in on itself. Most stars become white dwarfs – they are small – about the size of the Earth and have the entire mass of the sun squeezed into it.
      Any gas that is left over that doesn’t become the white dwarf, is ejected into space and becomes a nebula. Eventually new stars will form here.

      So essentially, when a star runs out of fuel, it dies.

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