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Stars & Stellar Evolution
How stars are born from cold clouds of gas, how they burn for millions or billions of years, and how they die — sometimes as quiet white dwarfs, sometimes as black holes. The physics behind every point of light.
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The HR Diagram: The Single Most Useful Chart in Astronomy
The Hertzsprung–Russell diagram plots stars by luminosity and temperature. Nearly every question in stellar astronomy starts here.
Dmitry Shteynbuk · March 12, 2026 · 3 min read
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3 publishedStars & Stellar Evolution·
How Stars Die: White Dwarfs, Neutron Stars, and Black Holes
A star's endpoint is set almost entirely by its birth mass. Three different endings, three different physical regimes, one clear rule.
Dmitry Shteynbuk · 3 min read
/articles/how-stars-dieStars & Stellar Evolution·
How a Star Is Born
Star formation from cold molecular cloud to protostar to hydrogen fusion — the physics, the timescales, and the real objects you can point a telescope at.
Dmitry Shteynbuk · 3 min read
/articles/how-a-star-is-bornTerms to know
Full glossary →- HR diagram
- The Hertzsprung–Russell diagram: luminosity plotted against temperature.
- Main sequence
- The diagonal band on the HR diagram where stars spend most of their lives fusing hydrogen.
- White dwarf
- The exposed carbon-oxygen core left after a Sun-like star sheds its outer layers.
- Neutron star
- The compact remnant of a massive star's core collapse.
- Black hole
- A region where gravity is strong enough that not even light escapes.
- Parallax
- The apparent shift of a nearby star against the background as Earth orbits the Sun.