Lifetime
Although compact stars may radiate, and thus cool off and lose energy, they do not depend on high temperatures to maintain their pressure. Barring external perturbation or baryon decay, they will persist virtually forever, although black holes are generally believed to finally evaporate from Hawking radiation. Eventually, given enough time (when we enter the so-called degenerate era of the universe), all stars will have evolved into dark, compact stars.
A somewhat wider class of compact objects is sometimes defined to contain, as well as compact stars, smaller solid objects such as planets, asteroids, and comets. These compact objects are the only objects in the universe that could exist at low temperatures. There is a remarkable variety of stars and other clumps of matter, but all dense matter in the universe must eventually end in one of only five classes of compact objects.
Read more about this topic: Degenerate Stars
Famous quotes containing the word lifetime:
“I have a lifetime appointment and I intend to serve it. I expect to die at 110, shot by a jealous husband.”
—Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993)
“A lifetime of doing good is not enough; one day of doing evil is too much.”
—Chinese proverb.
“During the first formative centuries of its existence, Christianity was separated from and indeed antagonistic to the state, with which it only later became involved. From the lifetime of its founder, Islam was the state, and the identity of religion and government is indelibly stamped on the memories and awareness of the faithful from their own sacred writings, history, and experience.”
—Bernard Lewis, U.S. Middle Eastern specialist. Islam and the West, ch. 8, Oxford University Press (1993)