18: Stellar Birth and Evolution

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18.1: The Birth of Stars and the Discovery of Planets outside the Solar System
Do planets orbit other stars or is ours the only planetary system? In the past few decades, new technology has enabled us to answer that question by revealing nearly 3500 exoplanets in over 2600 planetary systems. Even before planets were detected, astronomers had predicted that planetary systems were likely to be byproducts of the star-formation process. In this chapter, we look at how interstellar matter is transformed into stars and planets.
18.2: Stars from Adolescence to Old Age
The Sun and other stars cannot last forever. Eventually they will exhaust their nuclear fuel and cease to shine. But how do they change during their long lifetimes? And what do these changes mean for the future of Earth? We now turn from the birth of stars to the rest of their life stories. This is not an easy task since stars live much longer than astronomers. Thus, we cannot hope to see the life story of any single star unfold before our eyes or telescopes.
18.3: The Death of Stars
Do stars die with a bang or a whimper? In the preceding two chapters, we followed the life story of stars, from the process of birth to the brink of death. Now we are ready to explore the ways that stars end their lives. Sooner or later, each star exhausts its store of nuclear energy. Without a source of internal pressure to balance the weight of the overlying layers, every star eventually gives way to the inexorable pull of gravity and collapses under its own weight.
18.4: Black Holes and Curved Spacetime
For most of the twentieth century, black holes seemed the stuff of science fiction, portrayed either as monster vacuum cleaners consuming all the matter around them or as tunnels from one universe to another. But the truth about black holes is almost stranger than fiction. As we continue our voyage into the universe, we will discover that black holes are the key to explaining many mysterious and remarkable objects—including collapsed stars.

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