When too
much of a star's hydrogen has combined to form helium, the star begins to collapse. The
collapsing star has enough heat to fuse the helium atoms together into elements like carbon (and
oxygen, if carbon fuses to helium). Depending on the size of the star, these new atoms can
continue fusing to form elements with even heavier nuclei.
In white dwarf
stars, the core is all that's left, and the main thing present in that core is helium. If the
star was larger to begin with, it never forms a white dwarf. Instead, it continues fusion and
creates heavier elements (the heaviest of which is iron).
Once iron has been
fused, there's not much left for the star to do no matter how hot its core may be. It can either
form a supernova or a black hole.
All the helium that exists in our universe
comes from this type of fusion.
No comments:
Post a Comment