- #1
ladykrimson
- 37
- 0
When a star like the sun begins to die, what is the time frame over which the star develops into a red giant? How quickly will it expand?
ladykrimson said:When a star like the sun begins to die, what is the time frame over which the star develops into a red giant? How quickly will it expand?
ladykrimson said:So as a star goes through it's red giant stage, is it losing mass or gaining mass?
ladykrimson said:So as a star goes through it's red giant stage, is it losing mass or gaining mass?
ladykrimson said:When a star like the sun begins to die, what is the time frame over which the star develops into a red giant? How quickly will it expand?
What remains is a slowly cooling carbon/oxygen white dwarf that, contrary to an earlier poster, lasts as long as matter survives.
Drakkith said:My mistake, I meant a star that is "active", or whatever you want to call it, will lose mass due to solar wind and such. A white dwarf, not being active anymore, will not lose mass except by the emission of radiation until it cools completely, at which point it will not anymore.
Radrook said:Thanx. You had me going there for a while. LOL
BTW
You have two different names on this forum?
qraal said:Radrook, a white dwarf star doesn't end if matter is eternal, but will eventually decay if protons are ultimately unstable.
I believe the answer there is that the Wiki chart is not intended to have an endpoint-- the "white dwarf" phase just continues for quite a while off the right edge of the chart. As you have already discussed with qraal, just exactly when a white dwarf should no longer be termed a white dwarf is a largely semantic issue, but it will take a lot longer than 3 billion years to encounter that semantic boondoggle, which is I think the main point qraal was making.Radrook said:I based my response on the chart provided at Wiki. Do you see any other way to understand that chart?
Ken G said:I believe the answer there is that the Wiki chart is not intended to have an endpoint-- the "white dwarf" phase just continues for quite a while off the right edge of the chart. As you have already discussed with qraal, just exactly when a white dwarf should no longer be termed a white dwarf is a largely semantic issue, but it will take a lot longer than 3 billion years to encounter that semantic boondoggle, which is I think the main point qraal was making.
Ken G said:I believe the answer there is that the Wiki chart is not intended to have an endpoint-- the "white dwarf" phase just continues for quite a while off the right edge of the chart. As you have already discussed with qraal, just exactly when a white dwarf should no longer be termed a white dwarf is a largely semantic issue, but it will take a lot longer than 3 billion years to encounter that semantic boondoggle, which is I think the main point qraal was making.
Radrook said:If English is spoken clearly it is understood clearly. If a person says that a white dwarf never ends then that's very simply understood as stated. The duration time indicated by the chart is 3 billion years. Blame the chart for misleading. I simply stated what the chart indicates. If indeed the durartion is longer or unknown then the chart should have indicated it with an arrow indicating continuation at the least.
BTW
I just found the same chart on another website with a caption telling the reader that the duration of the white dwarf stage isn't known. If that caption had been responsibly included in the wiki chart I would not have made that statement.
qraal said:I admit I didn't make myself very clear, but eye-balling figures off a Wikipedia article's chart isn't a very accurate data source to answer a questioner, surely?
Radrook said:I find the Wiki info to be pretty reliable. In any case, I'm merely following what I see some
others doing here. Quoting wiki articles and directing questioners to Wiki as an acceptable information source. As for accuracy, all Wiki articles include sources. So once a reader is guided there all he needs to do is verify via those links. I usually do that myself but had no time due to serious personal problems. But since WIKI isn't acceptable, according to you, then I will never use it as a reference again. Thanx for the advice!
Radrook said:I find the Wiki info to be pretty reliable. In any case, I'm merely following what I see some
others doing here. Quoting wiki articles and directing questioners to Wiki as an acceptable information source. As for accuracy, all Wiki articles include sources. So once a reader is guided there all he needs to do is verify via those links. I usually do that myself but had no time due to serious personal problems.But since WIKI isn't acceptable, according to you, then I will never use it as a reference again. Thanx for the advice!
A red giant is a type of star that has exhausted its core hydrogen fuel and is in the later stages of its life. As the star's core contracts and heats up, its outer layers expand, causing the star to increase in size and become red in color.
A red giant forms when a star with a mass between 0.5 and 8 times that of our sun reaches the end of its main sequence lifespan. As the star's hydrogen fuel runs out, the core contracts and heats up, causing the outer layers to expand and cool, resulting in a red giant.
Red giants can vary in size, but they can reach sizes up to hundreds of times larger than our sun. Some red giants have been observed to have radii of over 1,000 times that of our sun.
When a red giant runs out of fuel, it will shrink and become a white dwarf, a small and dense star that emits faint light. Some red giants may also undergo a supernova explosion, where the outer layers are violently ejected into space.
The expansion of a red giant can have a significant impact on objects in its vicinity. It can cause planets or other objects in orbit to be engulfed or destroyed, and it can also affect the dynamics of nearby stars. Additionally, the ejected materials from a red giant can contribute to the formation of new stars and planetary systems.