For a star that is twenty times the mass of the Sun, how does the duration of its entire active life cycle compare to the lifespan of our Sun?
Answer
It completes its entire active life cycle in just ten million years, thousands of times faster.
The text highlights a dramatic difference in lifespans driven by mass. While solar-mass stars can maintain stable hydrogen fusion for about ten billion years, massive stars burn their fuel aggressively due to higher core temperatures and pressures. A star twenty times the mass of the Sun might exhaust its fuel and reach its catastrophic end in a mere ten million years. This means its total active lifespan is completed thousands of times faster than that of our local star, making its final collapse phase the climax of a life lived at an incredible pace.
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