http://www.oneminuteastronomer.com/2009/06/18/how-big-stars-die/ Basic Astronomy and Night Sky Sights For Busy People Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:48:10 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 http://www.oneminuteastronomer.com/2009/06/18/how-big-stars-die/comment-page-1/#comment-28 Type II Supernovae: Very Big Explosions | One-Minute Astronomer Mon, 20 Jul 2009 22:28:31 +0000 http://www.oneminuteastronomer.com/?p=943#comment-28 [...] As you learned before, when a big star has burned through its stock of hydrogen, helium, carbon, etc., it’s eventually left with iron and nickel in the core.  But iron and nickel can’t fuse together to release any more energy.  So the game is finally up… and when burning stops, there is no more energy to hold the star up against its own gravity, and the star’s hot core suddenly collapses into a neutron star or a black hole.  This releases a huge amount of gravitational energy. [...] [...] As you learned before, when a big star has burned through its stock of hydrogen, helium, carbon, etc., it’s eventually left with iron and nickel in the core.  But iron and nickel can’t fuse together to release any more energy.  So the game is finally up… and when burning stops, there is no more energy to hold the star up against its own gravity, and the star’s hot core suddenly collapses into a neutron star or a black hole.  This releases a huge amount of gravitational energy. [...]

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