u3a

Weymouth & Portland

The Sun's Life Story

The Sun's Life Story' - From a bouncing baby cloud of gas and dust to a miserly old White Dwarf.

Early DaysDust and gas cloud; Jeans criterion; Rotation & magnetic fields; Ionisation; T Tauri; Protostars; Hayashi Track; Henyey Stage; Nuclear fusion
The Main Sequence - Hydrogen BurningDefinition of nuclear components; Binding energy; PPI, PPII & PPIII; CNO bi-cycle; gradual luminosity increase
Red Giant StageHydrogen shell burning; Helium core; First dredge-up; Expansion of envelope; Helium flash; Helium burning; Red giant clump; Helium shell burning; Thermal instabilities; The s-process; Planetary nebula; Bipolar outflow
White Dwarf-domRadius-Mass relationship; Chandrasekhar's insight; Supernova Type Ia; The Sun's cooling stages
Event type: Group Meeting
Date: 10th November 2026
Group: Science and Technology