• Question: how do stars burn out?

    Asked by to Sarah, Sam on 13 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by , .
    • Photo: Sarah Casewell

      Sarah Casewell answered on 13 Jun 2014:

      Stars burn Hydrogen to stay alive. The energy given off keeps the stars inflated (otherwise gravity would squash them).
      When stars run out of fuel, they can’t hold themselves up against gravity any more and they collapse. What they collapse into depends on how massive they are. Most stars, like our sun, will collapse to become a white dwarf. These have the mass of the sun, squeezed into a ball the mass of the Earth.

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