Making massive stars
Friday, September 10, 2010 - 11:07
in Astronomy & Space
Massive stars -- those with more than about eight times the mass of the sun -- are arguably the most important actors in the universe. Much hotter and more luminous than the sun, they live only hundreds of millions of years before exploding in supernovae, but during their lives their nuclear furnaces produce a wide range of chemical elements (the universe was created with primarily hydrogen and helium).