what is the approximate life of a star?

Answer 1

"The life span of a star depends on its size. Very large, massive stars burn their fuel much faster than smaller stars. Their main sequence may last only a few hundred thousand years. Smaller stars will live on for billions of years because they burn their fuel much more slowly.

Eventually, the star's fuel will begin to run out. It will expand into what is known as a red giant. Massive stars will become red super giants. This phase will last until the star exhausts its remaining fuel. At this point, the pressure of the nuclear reaction is not strong enough to equalize the force of gravity and the star will collapse. Most average stars will blow away their outer atmospheres to form a planetary nebula. Their cores will remain behind and burn as a white dwarf until they cool down. What will be left is a dark ball of matter known as a black dwarf. If the star is massive enough, the collapse will trigger a violent explosion known as a supernova. If the remaining mass of the star is about 1.4 times that of our Sun, the core is unable to support itself and it will collapse further to become a neutron star. The matter inside the star will be compressed so tightly that its atoms are compacted into a dense shell of neutrons. If the remaining mass of the star is more than about three times that of the Sun, it will collapse so completely that it will literally disappear from the universe. What is left behind is an intense region of gravity called a black hole".

Read more about and watch a graphical illustration of the process:
http://www.seasky.org/cosmic/sky7a01.html

Answer 2

This depends on the size of the star. A blue giant may live approximately for 50 million years while a red dwarf can live for about 100 billion years. A yellow dwarf, like our sun, can live for 8 billion years. The life span of a star depends on how fast the star is using its hydrogen supply. A blue giant rapidly fuses its hydrogen into helium, while a red dwarf slowly "burns" it hydrogen.

Answer 3

Depends on the stars MASS...even more so than it's "size". When the sun eventually starts to run out of gas, it will begin ejecting much of it's own mass, while what remains will start to inflate and become a "Red Giant"...at that point, the sun would be so large it will have expanded beyond the orbit of Mars, swallowing up Earth, Venus, and Mercury as well.
In the case of the sun, I'd say the life span would be maybe 12 to 15 billion years.

Answer 4

There is no approximate life of a star. The star's lifespan will depend on a number of factors, the most important of which is the amount of fuel in the star. Some very small stars can burn themselves out in as little as 150 million years.

Another factor is the the burn rate of the fuel. Cooler burning blue stars last longer than hotter burning stars.

Stars that are like our sun, can last as long as 5 - 6 billion years.

Answer 5

Normally one refer to the time a star spends on the so called main sequence - that is, the time a star is "burning" hydrogen in its core. Later it starts burning helium etc. in its core as well, but the time it does so is negligible compared to the time on the main sequence.

An approximation to the time on the main sequence (T_ms) is given by:

T_ms = 10Gyr* (M/M_sun)^(-2.5)

Where: Gyr=10^9 years and M_sun=the mass of the sun

Answer 6

Depends very much on their size. Large stars may only last a few million years. Small stars will last tens of billions of years before exhausting their fuel. The rate at which stars burn fuel increases faster than their size, so life varies inversely with size.

Answer 7

0! The calculation is as follows: The universe is endless. interior that endless area are an endless form of planets. in easy terms a finite form of those planets are populated with civilisations. Any finite variety divided by way of infinity is so small it may legitimately be seen 0. subsequently, there are 0 populated planets interior the universe and as a effect no civilisations. until now you argue that planet earth includes a civilisation watch the information - there is no longer something civilised approximately us!

Answer 8

that depends upon size of star

Answer 9

Millions of years.

Answer 10

depends what drugs they get into average is 10 years