The more massive a star is, the higher temperature its core reaches and the faster it burns through its nuclear fuel. As a star's supply of hydrogen to fuse runs out, it begins to contract and the temperature increases. If the star gets dense and hot enough, it will start to fuse heavier elements. Similarly, you may ask, what happens when massive stars die?
When a high-mass star has no hydrogen left to burn, it expands and becomes a red supergiant. While most stars quietly fade away, the supergiants destroy themselves in a huge explosion, called a supernova. The death of massive stars can trigger the birth of other stars.
Subsequently, question is, which stars die the quickest? The most massive stars have the shortest lives. Stars that are 25 to 50 times that of the Sun live for only a few million years. They die so quickly because they burn massive amounts of nuclear fuel.
Also, why do more massive stars die faster than less massive stars?
The more massive a star is, the higher temperature its core reaches and the faster it burns through its nuclear fuel. As a star's supply of hydrogen to fuse runs out, it begins to contract and the temperature increases. If the star gets dense and hot enough, it will start to fuse heavier elements.
Do stars explode when they die?
Stars die because they exhaust their nuclear fuel. Really massive stars use up their hydrogen fuel quickly, but are hot enough to fuse heavier elements such as helium and carbon. Once there is no fuel left, the star collapses and the outer layers explode as a 'supernova'.
Related Question Answers
What is the final stage of a massive star?
The final fate of a very massive star, whether it explodes as core collapse supernova, as pair instability supernova, as black-hole accretiondriven supernova, as gamma-ray burst, or just collapses to a black hole, depends on how much mass the star has left when it reached the end of its evolution. Do stars explode?
Such stars explode when they use up their nuclear fuel and collapse. Stars weighing more than about eight times the Sun's mass burn through their hydrogen fuel quickly, but as a massive star runs low on one fuel, it taps into another. Each new fuel releases less energy, so the star burns through it even faster. What happens when a massive star ends its life as a supernova?
A massive star ends with a violent explosion called a supernova. The matter ejected in a supernova explosion becomes a glowing supernova remnant. How stars die and are born?
Stars are born when large gas clouds collapse under gravity. When it eventually dies, it will expand to a form known as a 'red giant' and then all the outer layers of the Sun will gradually blow out into space leaving only a small White Dwarf star behind about the size of the Earth. How long do stars live for?
about 10 billion years
Why do supernovas explode?
It's a balance of gravity pushing in on the star and heat and pressure pushing outward from the star's core. When a massive star runs out of fuel, it cools off. This causes the pressure to drop. The collapse happens so quickly that it creates enormous shock waves that cause the outer part of the star to explode! What is a dead star called?
White dwarfs are dead stars. What happens when a star breaks?
The star collapses by its own gravity and the iron core heats up. The core becomes so tightly packed that protons and electrons merge to form neutrons. The remains of the core can form a neutron star or a black hole depending upon the mass of the original star. What stops the collapse of the most massive stars at the end of their lives?
Medium-mass stars become neutron starsNeutrons prevent further collapse.
Can a star less massive than the sun become a supernova?
What's left is an ultra-dense object called a neutron star, a city-sized object that can pack the mass of the sun in a small space. Stars much more massive than the sun (around 20 to 30 solar masses) might not explode as a supernova, astronomers think. Instead they collapse to form black holes. What are 2 possible fates of high mass massive stars?
Most stars will end their lives as this way: as white dwarfs. Heavier stars, on the other hand, will continue fusing heavier and heavier elements until they go supernova, with the core collapsing to either a neutron star or a black hole. What remains of a massive star after it explodes as a supernova?
A massive star will undergo a supernova explosion. If the remnant of the explosion is 1.4 to about 3 times as massive as our Sun, it will become a neutron star. The force of gravity overcomes the nuclear forces which keep protons and neutrons from combining. The core is thus swallowed by its own gravity. Why do red giants lose mass?
Red giants can have strong "winds" that dispel more mass than all of the stellar winds that occurred during the long main sequence stage. All through the star's life after it first started nuclear reactions, it has been losing mass as it converted some mass to energy and other mass was lost in the winds. What is the life cycle of massive stars?
Any star which is larger than eight solar masses during its regular main sequence lifetime is considered a massive star. They typically have a quick main sequence phase, a short red supergiant phase, and a spectacular death via a supernova explosion. What is stronger than a supernova?
Typical hypernovae can be anywhere from ten to a hundred times more powerful than a supernova. And while a hypernova can come from the same source as a supernova (in other words, the death of a giant star) there's some extra special physics that go down to turn a nova from super-mode to hyper-mode. Why do the most massive stars leave black hole remnants after they die?
The bottom line is that black holes are the burying grounds of extremely massive stars. Following a supernova explosion, the massive core is left behind. Lacking a suitable balancing force, gravity pulls the core together to a point where the escape velocity exceeds the speed of light. What type of stars live the longest?
Generally, the bigger a star is, the faster it uses up its supply of nuclear fuel, so the longest-lived stars are among the smallest. The stars with the longest lifetimes are red dwarfs; some may be nearly as old as the universe itself. How can a star die?
Most stars take millions of years to die. When a star like the Sun has burned all of its hydrogen fuel, it expands to become a red giant. After puffing off its outer layers, the star collapses to form a very dense white dwarf. How long until all stars burn out?
Even the dimmest stars, the cool red dwarfs will use up their fuel – although, it might taken another 10 trillion years or so. They too will turn into black dwarfs. And so, in about 100 trillion years from now, every star in the Universe, large and small, will be a black dwarf. Do stars live and die?
A star's life expectancy depends on its mass. The most massive stars can burn out and explode in a supernova after only a few million years of fusion. A star with a mass like the Sun, on the other hand, can continue fusing hydrogen for about 10 billion years. Do stars get colder as they age?
As a star ages, the fuel in the core gets used up and the star cools. The core will then contract due to gravity. As a result, the temperature inside the core can increase and trigger more fusion. 
