stellar evolution

Introduction

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The above Hertzsprung-Russell (H-R) diagram shows the track of stellar evolution for a typical star. After spending much of its life evolving toward or along the main sequence, the star becomes a red giant star and finally shrinks to the white dwarf stage before burning out.

stellar evolution, life history of a star, beginning with its condensation out of the interstellar gas (see interstellar matter) and ending, sometimes catastrophically, when the star has exhausted its nuclear fuel or can no longer adjust itself to a stable configuration. Because a star's total energy reserve is finite, a star shining today cannot continue to produce its present luminosity steadily into the indefinite future, nor can it have done so from the indefinite past. Thus, stellar evolution is a necessary consequence of the physical theory of stellar structure, which requires that the luminosity, temperature, and size of a star must change as its chemical composition changes because of thermonuclear reactions.

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