The Hot Life and Violent Death of a Big Star
Being a big star sounds nice--until you realize that, after burning bright for a while, you're destined to die a violent death. But at least you'll go out in a blaze of glory.
Like humans, stars are born through contractions--though the contractions here are not of muscle, but of massive clouds of gas and dust in interstellar space. Every now and then, such a cloud accumulates enough matter for gravitational forces to pull it together even more. A protostar is born, and gets hot. When the temperature near its center hits 18 million degrees Fahrenheit (10 million degrees Celsius), nuclear reactions kick in.
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