(ORDO NEWS) — When stars like our sun die, they turn inside out in a terrible reappearance of fundamental elements. Regardless, it’s quite a sight to behold, creating beautiful planetary nebulae.
But for stars larger than the sun, they go out with a bang.
Merge problem. This is how stars get their energy. Right now, our sun is burning massive amounts of hydrogen every second, leaving behind helium.
With age, it will turn into burning this helium, producing carbon and oxygen. Without giving up yet, he will fuse this carbon and oxygen into silicon, magnesium and iron.
And it turns out that iron is the end of the melting line.
Once iron appears in the core of a giant star, you are only minutes away from a Type II supernova (also known as “core collapse”).
With each successive generation of heavier elements, the rate of fusion is getting faster and faster. This is because heavier elements provide less energy than their lighter counterparts, and so the crushing gravity of the star’s own weight increases the intensity.
But iron production doesn’t release energy, it burns energy.
As soon as there is a lot of iron, the support will be pulled out from under the star. All of the surrounding material crashes into this tiny core at a fraction of the speed of light.
This material slams into the core with such force that the electrons are pushed into the interior of the protons, turning the entire iron core into a giant ball of neutrons.
This ball of neutrons (correctly called a “proto-neutron star”) can, at least temporarily, withstand the ongoing collapse. But as soon as all this material bounces off the core, it causes a shock wave.
And there is a big explosion – a type II supernova.
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