Lecture 30 – Star Formation and Evolution, Part 2/3: Life of Low-Mass Stars
Summary / Checklist of the Main Concepts to Understand and Remember

Main Sequence Lifetime  
• Why do stars stop contracting, and spend their time on the Main Sequence with a fixed size, changing very little during most of their life?  
red bullet What reactions take place in the core during a stars' Main Sequence life that produce the stars' energy output? (What nuclei are produced?)  
• What two processes transport the energy produced in the core out to the star's surface?  
red bullet What causes the Main Sequence lifetime of a star to end?  
red bullet How long does a star like the Sun live on the Main Sequence? Do less massive stars live shorter or longer lives? Why?  
     
Evolution of Low-Mass Stars (up to a few times the mass of the Sun)  
• What happens to the core when the hydrogen in it is depleted?  
• What happens to the rest of the star as a consequence, and what does the star become? (Where does it go on the HR diagram?)  
• What event in the core triggers the next phase in a star's life, and what happens to the star as a consequence?  
• What causes this "second life" of a star to end?  
• What happens to the star afterwards? After those stages, what does the star look like from a distance?  
red bullet What will be the ultimate fate of (what is left of) a star like the Sun? Name one example of white dwarf.  
     
     
     

Topics from the lecture page and textbook not listed above [or between square brackets] were not covered in class;
Underlined words indicate that I will expect students to remember a number or a name related to that topic.

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