PCS 181 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Red Supergiant Star, Big Bang, Rapidfire

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Physics
• Course: PCS 181
• Professor: Dave Kirsh

Document Summary

Core begins h fusion when it hits 10 to the power 7 k (10 million) Fusion ignited in the core when it reached ten million kelvin. What powers the sun is hydrogen fusion- you take 5 protons jam them together and you get one helium. 90-95% of stars that we can see are currently main sequence. Life is much longer than birth or death processes. Stars are born in a nebula- giant molecular gas cloud. Over the next 5 billion years or so the sun will start to die. The red giant will blow into dead space-planetary nebula. The core will start to turn into pure helium. When you have two protons colliding, you get a deuterium. Then if they hit another proton, it will collide again and create helium 3- Then if you collide (cid:884) helium (cid:885)"s you will get a helium. A couple extra protons go flying back out and you are left with helium.