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Evening Of Aug 08...star
So,there I was Friday evening 'rnd. 11pm,walking home.
There...
How long does a star last in outer space?
The lifespan of a star depends primarily on its mass and temperature. If you have ever tried to heat a piece of iron, you would see that initially it would glow with a dull reddish color. Eventually, as it got hotter, it would glow with an orange hue, and then develop a yellowish, a white, and, ultimately, a bluish coloration.
Similarly, those stars that appear ruddy in color are “cool” stars that generally last tens of billions of years before exhausting all of their hydrogen fuel. In contrast, a blue star is in the hottest class of stars and will consume supplies of hydrogen at a furious pace, literally “burning the candle at both ends.” Such very hot stars usually last “only” about billion years or so at the most. Our Sun is somewhere in the middle, about halfway through its lifespan, around 5 billion years old, and will continue to glow for another 5 billion years.
Stars indeed explode (supernovae), but in order for that to happen, a star must also be quite massive, at least three times more massive than our Sun. Such stars end their lives with a cataclysmic explosion, and suddenly burst, or completely blow apart. When this occurs, the light energy can equal 100 billion stars or more, an entire galaxy. History tells us that such star explosions were seen in the years 1006, 1054, 1572, and 1604. In some of those instances, the exploding star was visible even in broad daylight!
