Compact Stars As The Endpoint of Stellar Evolution
Compact stars form the endpoint of stellar evolution. A star shines and thus loses energy. The loss from the radiating surface is compensated by the production of energy from nuclear fusion in the interior of the star. When a star has exhausted all its energy and undergoes stellar death, the gas pressure of the hot interior can no longer support the weight of the star and the star collapses to a denser state: a compact star.
Read more about this topic: Degenerate Stars
Famous quotes containing the words compact, stars and/or evolution:
“What compact mean you to have with us?
Will you be pricked in number of our friends,
Or shall we on, and not depend on you?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“the stars turn slowly
in the blue foil beside them
like the eyes of a mild savior.”
—James Tate (b. 1943)
“As a natural process, of the same character as the development of a tree from its seed, or of a fowl from its egg, evolution excludes creation and all other kinds of supernatural intervention.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)