Table of Contents
- 1 What causes a star to become a black hole?
- 2 What determines if a star becomes a black hole or a neutron star?
- 3 What determines if a star turns into a black hole or neutron star?
- 4 How does a star become a neutron star?
- 5 What happens when a star falls into a black hole?
- 6 What is the most important factor to determine whether a star will turn into a black hole or a supernova?
What causes a star to become a black hole?
Most black holes form from the remnants of a large star that dies in a supernova explosion. (Smaller stars become dense neutron stars, which are not massive enough to trap light.) When the surface reaches the event horizon, time stands still, and the star can collapse no more – it is a frozen collapsing object.
Can a small star turn into a black hole?
Some smaller stars are big enough to go supernova, but too small to become black holes — they’ll collapse into super-dense structures called neutron stars after exploding as a supernova.
What determines if a star becomes a black hole or a neutron star?
— When the most massive stars die, they collapse under their own gravity and leave behind black holes; when stars that are a bit less massive than this die, they explode and leave behind dense, dead remnants of stars called neutron stars.
How large does a star have to be to become a black hole?
2 to 3 solar masses
So, for a star with the same mass as our Sun, the Schwarzschild radius is about 3 km, or about 2 miles. In general, stars with final masses in the range 2 to 3 solar masses are believed to ultimately collapse to a black hole.
What determines if a star turns into a black hole or neutron star?
If it is less than three solar masses it remains as a neutron star but if the star’s weight is more than about three solar masses, then it collapses further to form a black hole.
Can All stars become a black hole?
The gravitational collapse of a star is a natural process that can produce a black hole. It is inevitable at the end of the life of a large star when all stellar energy sources are exhausted. There are no known processes that can produce black holes with mass less than a few times the mass of the Sun.
How does a star become a neutron star?
Neutron stars are formed when a massive star runs out of fuel and collapses. The very central region of the star – the core – collapses, crushing together every proton and electron into a neutron. (Stars with higher masses will continue to collapse into stellar-mass black holes.)
Why does a neutron star collapse?
A neutron star is formed during a supernova, an explosion of a star that is at least 8 solar masses. The maximum mass of a neutron star is 3 solar masses. If it gets more massive than that, then it will collapse into a quark star, and then into a black hole.
What happens when a star falls into a black hole?
The black hole immediately swallows half the star’s matter while the rest arcs away in long streamers. These rapidly fall back and settle into an accretion disk that steadily feeds material into the black hole, growing so hot that it emits copious x-rays.
What determines if a star will become a black hole or neutron star?
Originally Answered: What determines if a collapsed star turns into a black hole or a neutron star? Only one thing – the mass of the star. If the mass of the supernova remnant is below 2.16 times the mass of our Sun, it will collapse into a neutron star.
What is the most important factor to determine whether a star will turn into a black hole or a supernova?
Originally Answered: What determines if a collapsed star turns into a black hole or a neutron star? Very simply, its mass. Stars 3 to 5 times the mass of the Sun, will explode (supernova) leaving behind an incredibly dense neutron star.