Nuclear fusion in stars? As the stars produce light thru fussion isnt its mass lost due to mass defect?

Question

So when a star dies would it experience a great mass loss , therefore would have less gravity against what is alluded that a black hole possess? how can that happen?

Answer 1

Hi. All stars lose mass as they form heavier elements. But a black hole is not caused by just gravity, it's caused by CONCENTRATING gravity into a small radius.

Answer 2

The life cycle of a star depends on the complex balance between gravity which tends to collapse the star and energy production which counteracts this tendency, but in turn depends on exactly what fission or fusion processes are occurring. Because there are different star masses and different star composition of elements, there can be a wide variety of stellar histories just like there are all kinds of snowfakes. A star never reaches the stage of being "completely burned up", exhausting all matter. Long before that happens, changes within the star causes gravity to finally win out, and the star collapses into a dwarf star, or a neutron star, or in some cases, a black hole. Sometimes there's a stupendous explosion before the final collapse, which is a supernova. But in any case, there's always plenty of mass left in it.

Answer 3

Stars produce light with fusion, not fission. The gravitational collapse that produces the black hole comes when large amount of mass is concentrated in a small space. In fact, just about anything can be turned into black holes. If earth had the same mass but was reduced to a ball just 8cm in diameter, Earth would experience a gravitational collapse and become a black hole. Luckily, we have the electromagnetic force to stops this from happening.

Answer 4

You are both right, and wrong.

The production of energy in the Sun through fusion does indeed cause a loss of mass, 4 million or 5 million tons of it every second - so you were right.

But the Sun is so stupendously incomprehensibly massive to start with that, even in several thousand million years' time, it will still have more than enough mass left to become a black hole, if that is its destiny - so you were wrong.

Answer 5

When a star dies, it's mass at that point is irrelevant. You see, stars are so massive, they collapse in on themselves (which can cause the black hole). Matter cannot be created nor destroyed so regardless of fussion, it won't lose it's mass.

Answer 6

I suppose the gain in mass by gravitational forces of the star acting on the surrounding gases, is at a higher rate than nuclear fusion. the mass defect is very negligible.

Answer 7

"About 5 million tons of mass have to be converted into pure energy each second to keep the sun shining. But the sun is so big that it scarcel notices this mass loss....been shining 4.5 billion years.....overall mass has only diminished about 4 percent."