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Massive stars go through six stages throughout their lifetime:
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Nebula
The very beginning of the star’s life cycle. Nebulae are massive interstellar clouds of gas and dust. It is here that stars are formed. The star condenses into a huge globule and contracts under its own gravity.
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Protostar
This globule starts heating up and glowing to form what’s known as a Protostar. At a very high temperature, nuclear reactions in which gaseous hydrogen fuses to form helium begin.
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Main Sequence Star
The most luminous stage and also the longest, the star shines for millions of years in this stage, with the energy being provided by nuclear reactions at
the star’s core.​
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Red Supergiant
The helium core now starts to contract and reactions begin to occur in a shell around the core. The core is hot enough for the helium to fuse to form carbon. The outer layers begin to expand, cool and shine less brightly. The expanding star is called a Red Supergiant. It reaches the M spectral type, which is the coolest in the Morgan-Keenan (MK) system.
Supernova
With no more fuel left to power the core of the star, it explodes in less than a second and creates the biggest explosion in the universe; the supernova. Such an explosion causes the remains of the star to be scattered all across the galaxy.
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Black Hole
While this is not the only possibility, it is what occurs after the supernova for stars three times the mass of the sun. All the remains of the star are crushed into a small, dense object around which gravitational effects are so strong that nothing, not even light can escape from it. This dense object is called a “black hole”. Black holes are incredibly enigmatic; they deform spacetime and act as ideal blackbodies, as they reflect no light.