The Fate of the Stars
All scenes › Chapter 2 The heaviest star: a black hole
A restless giant
Running out of fuel, it throws off its outer layers
View in 3DA restless giant
About 5 million years after its birth, the 40-Sun star is running out of fuel. It swells and shrinks and becomes very unstable. Again and again it blasts gas from its outer layers into space. A star like this can lose nearly half of its mass during its life.
Why?The light pouring out of the center is so strong that it pushes the outer gas away. The star’s weight pressing in and the light pushing out are barely balanced, and every time the balance breaks, gas bursts out.
Learn moreIn the 1840s the star Eta Carinae erupted like this and briefly became the second-brightest star in the night sky. Stars like this are called luminous blue variables.
- When
- About 5 million years old
- Star we are watching
- 40-Sun star
- Size · state
- Swelling and shrinking · throwing off gas
Read more
Wikipedia: Luminous blue variable · Wikipedia: Eta Carinae
More in the series
Lifetimes and sizes are typical values from models of how stars change (approximate). The black hole horizon size and the teaspoon masses are calculated with official constants. Sizes, distances and speeds in the 3D view are a rough sketch.