Red Giants, White Dwarfs, and Supergiants are all out there in the vast universe of the starry night sky.
Our own Sun is a star that is approaching its own mid-life crisis. The age of our sun is approximately 4.6 million years. This is about halfway through its own life cycle as the closet star to earth.
In an enormous blast of hydrogen gas and dust called a nebula a star is born. The nebula then breaks up into much smaller whirling balls. Each of these balls generates extreme heat and a chain of nuclear reactions then is set off from this sizzling inferno. As these nuclear reactions occur, the hydrogen chemically changes into helium, which is another form of gas that continues to fuel this new star. This immature star illuminates brightly and radiates enormous amounts of intense temperature.
The swollen and puffy Red Giant will appear many times its normal size at this stage of its life. As soon as the helium core falls apart, the raging inferno burns up its remaining hydrogen and it becomes a huge orange/red ball.
At this point with the gas surface blown away, the star is now a planetary nebula and a white dwarf star. Its shrunken core mimics a new dwarf star. Finally billions of years later this star burns to ashes and dies.
Our vast universe contains billions and billions of stars that are born, live and die.
Stars are so much more than heavenly bodies that glimmer and glow to earthlings on a dark, clear night. Every star has a story to tell and a history to share.
Once we piece together the history and stories of stars we will then only begin to understand our own solar system's infinite mysteries.
