The Astrology of Space - Matrix Software

The Astrology of Space
star, adding matter to the white dwarf and pushing the
mass beyond the critical limit of 1.44 solar masses. At
that point the core of the white-dwarf collapses
violently, releasing energy as a supernova, leaving
behind a binary system of an ordinary giant star and
an x-ray source.
For a star much more massive than the Sun, the
supernova evolution is different. The star also fuses
hydrogen into helium in its core for a few hundred
million years and, when the hydrogen is almost
exhausted, the core contracts, the outer layers of the
star expand, and the star becomes a red giant.
Hydrogen continues to be burned in a shell around
the core, as the core itself contracts until it heats up
enough to fuse helium into carbon. When the helium
is nearly exhausted, the core begins to burn the
carbon.
At that point, one of two conditions can occur. The
ignition of the carbon could induce instabilities that
would detonate the star as a SN II, leaving behind
nothing but an expanding gaseous remnant. Or, if the
carbon is safely ignited, the extraordinarily high
temperatures in the core could generate neutrinos at
an ever-increasing rate sapping the stars energy,
causing the core to plunge to a total collapse. In this
event, a final burst of neutrinos might carry away so
much of the red giant's rotational momentum, that it
would blow off the entire outer envelope of the star.
An explosion of this kind would leave behind a
gaseous remnant, in the center of which would be a
pulsating pulsar a rapidly rotating neutron star) or a
black hole.
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