Friday, February 12, 2010

Formation of Supernova Star and Neutron Star

A big explosion takes place here. Well the stars those are much heavier than the sun end up in a more catastrophic way resulting in huge discharge. This can also be explained –

When a very big star is in the red-giant phase, then being big, its core contains much more helium. This big core made up of helium continues to contract (shrink) under the action of gravity producing higher and higher temperatures. At this extremely high temperature, fusion of helium into carbon takes place in the core and a lot of energy is produced. Since the star was very big and contained enormous nuclear fuel helium, so a tremendous amount of nuclear energy is produced very rapidly which causes the outer shell (or envelope) of this red-giant star to explode with a brilliant flash like a nuclear bomb. This type of exploding star is called supernova.

The energy released in one second of a supernova explosion is equal to the energy released by the sun in about 100 years. This tremendous energy would light up the sky for many days. When a supernova explosion takes place, then clouds of gases in the envelope of red-giant star are liberated into the space and these gases act as raw material for the formation of new stars. The heavy core left behind after the supernova explosion continues to contract and ultimately becomes a neutron star.
This theory bring to a close that a supernova arises when the core of an extremely big star collapses under its own gravitational attraction, releasing tremendous amount of energy which causes the outer shell to explode. Thus, the inner part of the red-giant star undergoes an implosion, while the outer part undergoes an explosion (see Figure m).

The imploding core may form a neutron star. The stars, which are composed of matter mainly in the form of neutrons, are called neutron stars.

You must also know how a neutron star is formed. The neutron star arises from the collapsed core of a supernova. After the supernova explosion, the outer shell (or envelope) of the red-giant star explodes and only the helium core survives. This core continues to contract (shrink) under the tremendous force of gravitation and ultimately it forms an extremely dense lump of matter. This extremely dense lump of matter is called neutron star. The neutron stars have very high densities. The density of a neutron star is about a million tonnes per cubic centimeter or even higher

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