stellar evolution: Validating the Theory of Stellar Evolution

Because the computed lifetimes of stars range from millions to billions of years, one cannot follow an individual star through its life history observationally, or even observe significant changes in the whole span of human history, except from the violent events of nova and supernova explosions. However, new stars are continually being formed and hence stars of all ages exist at the present epoch; examples of the various stages of stellar evolution can be found in different stars. The age of a star is not a directly observable characteristic but must be inferred from the very evolutionary theory one is trying to validate. Confidence in this circular reasoning results from its self-consistency and its ability to draw together into a unified picture a wide variety of observational data on individual stars, clusters of stars, and galaxies.

See cosmology; star clusters.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Validating the Theory of Stellar Evolution
• Old Stars and Death
• Mature Stars and the Main Sequence
• Contraction of the Protostar
• Bibliography

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