Stellar Warzone: Gravity’s Siege and the Forces That Defy Collapse

Each Common Star is a Battlefield itself, where one superpower creates several competitors and they fight there. Every Star must pass and remain quiet in this immense torture and hide its sorrow itself beneath its enormous shine. In this post, we'll see how a common star remains calm and gives us light with an eye to those entities and forces that help to sustain the star. Welcome to our Blog, and let's move deeper into this topic.

Introduction:

We're talking about Forces and entities that keep the Star alive, it is a sort of Balance and battle. A Star before its birth had already been crushed by gravity, which began from a large gas cloud collapse process after some triggers, like a Supernova shockwave, Black hole jets, or Ionizing Radiation.

At that time, the gravity was in favor of the star and fed gas and dust, accumulating particles, adding more mass. Once it started to defy gravity, meaning it couldn't collapse anymore, it found a way to counter the gravity. Several allies of the protostar came into existence, like Rotational force, which was working on an atomic level but now has to help the star from contraction.

Magnetic and Electric forces that remained at the quantum level now start to influence at the mega level. Several other forces began to battle against gravity; they favored the protostar. Now image has changed; they are tearing the star like an impala struggling for escape, whose neck is grabbed by a leopard while its tail is in the mouth of a hyena. This is that kind of reality. Star must survive this phase. From here, Star becomes shiny, expelling screams and sorrow through enormous luminosity, Stellar winds, and flares.

We'll know each of these Forces separately and think also about whether any of these give up, and prey would fall into whose hands? We assume Star is spending his time in the main sequence where it burns hydrogen and produces helium for so long time, about 90% of its lifespan. The star is balanced from 2 aspects, which we call equilibrium (plural = Equilibria), each satisfied when something is lost and produced in equal amounts.

a:) Hydrostatic Equilibrium = All the particles in the stars must generate enough pressure to counteract the gravity so that stars remain spherical or so. Wherever this balance is delicate, reinforcement should arrive there.

b:) Thermal Equilibrium = Tremendous Energy is used to fight gravity's brute, but this energy should be generated in the right amounts as it is spent on the fight. Meaning low energy generation would lead to gravity's side winning, while higher than required would disturb the particle's integrity, and gravity would lose, and the star would explode.

Now let's look a bit further. These equilibria are maintained by different forces that will be tools to battle one strong enemy that was a friend once. As we said earlier, None of these forces will let the star live calmly or die quickly, but keep the star in the struggle until it loses all its power, do whatever it has. Whoever wins the star always dies.

Enemies of gravity or opposing forces that cause the star to expand:

• i) Fusion = which comes when Hydrogen nuclei fuse into Helium and release enormous energy.

• ii) Thermal force = Comes from high-speed moving particles' collision everywhere in the star, causing strong vibration, friction, and movement, thus the heat. (existed earlier)

• iii) Rotation Force = Existed earlier than protostellar gas feeding period due to particles simultaneously merging and rotating with some vibration or recoil some sort of. Becomes a big player later, when the star grows, and rotation helps the star maintain its shape, fuel, and steers the particles and products like we dissolve sugar-salt in lemon juice with a spoon.

• iv) Centrifugal Force = Becomes significant when the Star evolves and spins faster, it moves the particles in the opposite direction of gravity or from the core.

• v) Magnetic Field = Comes into existence when the star rotates sufficiently, it helps in the distribution of fusion products and fuels, and regulates a healthy fresh fuel by replacing bad ones in the core. It is especially effective on charged particles and products from fusion.

• vi) Electric field = forms when plasma moves, but stars are mostly electrically neutral, so unless a star has strange features, it's not significant, though.

These were the main forces if we exclude electric forces then we will get 5 major player against gravity, Gravity is the only player which comes from accumulating mass and gets stronger after every move of star's survival while its opposing forces do become powerful but they are dependent on star's supplies like amount of hydrogen, rate of fusion etc.

The amount of hydrogen is usually vanishing day by day, but not too quickly. So, Gravity is the only player that created these competitors and plays the brutal battle on Star. We'll see how gravity creates its opponent and what kind of struggle we expect from the star and its consequences.

Fusion:

When Hydrogen nuclei fuse and produce helium, they release enormous energy. It's not as simple as taking two snowballs and fusing them to create one large snowball. Let's see how such tiny particles can generate tremendous amounts of energy. So we know that a Star is not supported by Mega Turbines or Massive generators, but it is supported by almost nothing? Yes, Protons and other sub-atomic nuclei are nothing to us but Everything for the Universe, and let's see how.

When the Gas clouds collapse under their gravity, the protons and their homies assemble first of all. They will be constantly moving, colliding, and changing their direction due to their Electric forces or coulomb forces, in which the two same type of charges, like Positive, will repel each other while opposite charges will attract. It also has limits, we're not talking about protostellar formation and ionizing radiation forces them to change behavior, it happened Millions of years ago, not this time.

So it will require almost 350 kiloelectron volts (KeV) of energy, which is nothing we can't feel, such a tiny push or pull. It is enough to break the Coulomb effect, and two positively charged particles can stick together.

Energy, from this process, will come out almost 1.44 MeV (Megaelectron volts), such a small energy but we are combining only two protons Not the entire fusion process which gives around 26 MeV energy So don't think that only two Hydrogen (one Hydrogen particles represents one proton) atoms will give this energy. Instead, it's an ocean of protons in the core where Such fusion is happening 10 to the power of 38 times every second, or 4 billion kilograms. Protons are fusing or burning each second.

It is powerful enough to sustain the star. It will keep powering the stars for Billions of years. So this every second process renders as if 1000 hydrogen bombs are exploding in each 1 cm, only, and it pushes the star outwards like an explosion, but Gravity never lets it explode.

Let's try to see what happens inside the Core at the atomic level sight. In the above image, you see blue and green balls and sometimes yellow flashes. The blue represents the Hydrogen or similar particles, Green denotes Helium-3 particles, not common helium, because Normal Helium in the lab contains 2 protons and 2 neutrons (4 atomic mass), not only 1 neutron (3 atomic mass).

Yellow flashes show that the Fusion is done and energy is released. It's only 1 nanometer view or some sort of while a Real core features Millions of such fusions in just 1 cm. the total energy is slightly less than the actual expected energy because Some amounts are absorbed, annihilated in other quantum activities, transfer energy to nearby particles so we're not discussing these phenomena.

Hayashi Limit:

Now, let's think about what would happen if nuclear fusion stopped; how chaotic would it be? We must not forget that More massive stars face more aggressive compression of gravity. A star has its optimum point. Beyond this window, expansion or contraction is on either side; this window or optimum conditions can be estimated by the Hayashi limit. Which is a relation of Mass, Temperature, Radius mainly, which estimates that a star must maintain these parameters to stay alive; otherwise, if it goes lower or above higher values, then the star won't be stable.

You may think Butcher in front and Executioner in back, while the safe zone is Hayashi's limit. However, this limit was created for fully convective stars like Proxima Centauri, Trappist-1, or other M-dwarfs and main sequence Stars or almost fully stable stars. It applies to all kinds of stars except remnants. Named after its discoverer, the Immortal Scientist of Astronomy, Chushiro Hayashi.

According to current Solar models and theories, the Sun has a radius of approximately 695,700 Km and can fit up to 1.3 million Earths inside, with a photospheric temperature around 5800 K. it must maintain its properties which comes from after burning 4 billion Kg Hydrogen each second in the core but don't worry sun wouldn't disappear too soon because the main Fusion method is So slow it takes around 9 Billion years but how? We'll discuss in another dedicated post.

This powerful event gives 300 septillion Watts, meaning, tremendous energy. Which force fights against gravity and help our sun from becoming a black hole? If this energy disappears, then Gravity will shrink the sun into a black hole in just half an hour.

You can see in the diagram below of some famous stars, which mentions how long gravity will take to shrink them.

The Free Fall Chart of Famous Stars Assuming Only Gravity is working Force

Thermal Energy:

We talked earlier that to instigate Fusion, there is energy required, which can end the coulomb and other effects between protons. Now let's see where this energy comes from? Imagine you are in a car and you sit in the back seat with 10 people, will you feel heat, and you 11 people combined heat can cause discomfort, depending on the external temperature, and the Car's AC is turned off. So the same logic applies here.

Gravity brings subatomic particles together in a tiny space, which shrinks by the time meaning. If it packed 50 particles in 1 cubic cm, then later it can pack 50 trillion particles in that same space. When they come close together, they transfer each other's energy through collision and other quantum effects. It increases their speeds, and they move and collide more rapidly. Their combined effect generates an effect. If you touch this item, you'll say it's hot. This is heat.

We've seen thus far that the combined motion of each particle in the star is strong enough to assist the Nuclear energy from fusion; hence, Gravity creates a second competitor. If this heat decreases, meaning less motion in atoms, the fusion rate may also decrease. The extreme motion of the particle also generates a powerful pressure outward, meaning it also joins the battle against gravity, hence our star's life becomes hell. 

The fusion initiates when extreme heat and pressure are reached, and fusion gradually dominates in the stellar core, which further increases the heat, hence creating more chances for fusion zones. On top of that, this dense region locks the heat and can't be transferred easily to outer environments.

Rotation:

Have you ever thought why everything in our universe spins? Rotation of atoms, earth, planets, stars, and galaxies 99% of them are always found spinning. In our cosmos, everything is made up of an assembly of subatomic particles, which themselves rotate. One might ask, ok, fine, if everything is made of rotating particles, then why don't everyday stuff like tables, chairs, or we humans don't rotate automatically like stars and atoms?

Why don't common items spin like planets?

Let's understand this scene. Subatomic particles like electrons have an intrinsic property of rotation; you can't stop them like our eye is always used to seeing objects, you can't stop it unless you do something. In solid objects, these particles arrange in lattice-like structures and cancel the overall spin. Instead, they vibrate, but electrons don't stop rotating. So they don't spin like stars and other objects. If you heat them, their particles vibrate rapidly and conduct the flow of heat energy. This heat can disassemble their formations, causing melting, vaporizing, or fragmentation. Rotation consumes energy. The Daily life objects have factors like inertia, friction, and gravitational forces that are applied. All these entities render them static or non-rotating.

Why do celestial bodies rotate?

Now, see why planets and other large objects rotate? Since most of the cosmic entities form in accretion disks and are assembled by rotating particles and gravity. So we all know these disks are highly turbulent. It makes sense; they pass this angular momentum on to everything they create. Since our universe is Vast and has little to no resistance, unlike our Earth's skies, if you make something spin, the air resistance would gradually slow down its speed.

While space has nothing like this in most star-forming regions. Unless they got masses wrong, strong gravitational fields, they won't stop spinning. Like our moon, it has been trapped in Earth's gravitational field, and its orbital period and Rotational period are almost equal, hence we don't perceive our moon rotating. It means the moon orbits Earth around 27 days, and it takes the same time to spin one full rotation on its axis. So don't say our moon is tidally locked and doesn't spin; instead, you can say the Moon is locked, but rotation can't be perceived. That's it.

Centrifugal Force:

When Stars rotate, some new guests also come into existence, like Magnetic fields, Electric fields, and centrifugal force. It also helps the star to refresh its fuel; the plasma in the core can be degraded (ionization) or mixed with helium, which most stars don't treat as a fuel source. So, the rotation causes the immense mixing of the ocean of plasma to move from one point to another; therefore, its current takes the inactive fusion products with it and replaces the fresh fuel with no fusion products.

Since plasma is highly conductive when it flows, rises, falls, or collides like sea tides, it generates strong magnetic fields, which we'll discuss in the next section. The high-speed rotation causes particles to orbit the center at high speeds and tries to push away from the core's general direction. This force is called the Centrifugal force, which is a strong competitor of gravity. To feel this, take a little ring like a key ring and spin it through your finger, don't let your finger touch the ring, just keep moving your finger a little bit, and if you do it correctly, you'll see the ring doesn't fall. That's the centrifugal force.

Magnetic Field:

This is one of the most important features of Stars and planets, sometimes moons also. One might also think that Star is a giant magnet with Nuclear fusion, let's see where magneticity comes from?

We all know the magnet attracts some metals like iron, Aluminum, and others. When a piece of iron comes into contact with a magnet's magnetic field lines, it attracts. At the microscopic level, Iron is made up of tiny domains or regions where electron orbit their nuclei. If any magnet is nearby, the field lines start to influence the subatomic level and force electrons' tiny magnetic field lines to align with the magnet's. If they are close enough to 99% electrons arrange their fields according to the magnet's, the Iron piece will stick to the magnet. If we even remove the iron piece, it will behave like a magnet slightly because some electrons would still be aligned with the magnet's field lines, but as time passes, they will diminish this magnetic effect.

In stars. The plasma is the main reason for the magnetic field, because it's highly conductive. Even on Earth, if plasma occurs, it mostly goes directly down with some twists and turns. By the way, have you seen the plasma? You have seen it many times, remember, in thunderstorms, you see bright flashes sometimes, which cause a loud noise sometimes strong enough to shake the ground.

The yellowish white, sometimes blue-hued filament or line-like thing is called Plasma, which has a strong love for magnetic fields and follows them. That's why never use phones, computers, or electric devices. Even tools of Iron or other conductive materials, otherwise it might come to your house. Your stuff will say to this guy over here! Through us, the house can be destroyed, and Plasma will meet and demolish as soon as it meets the ground, of course, with an explosion, ionization and harmful effects. However, this event needs certain conditions.

Plasma is like water in stars, which has the same behavior as our ocean does, except magnetic and Heat properties. We can discuss it on another dedicated post, especially made for stellar materials like the Neutron Star surface. Plasma, convective zone matter, or core matter, which are never available on Earth. As the plasma in the Convective zone of stars moves, it generates strong magnetic field lines due to the combined effect of spinning electrons in a highly coordinated fashion. We have found there are mainly 3 types of field lines on our sun, let's see them in depth.

Star's magnetic field:

Let's look at the image below. Yeah, our star is eating noodles pretty large and long noodle strands. From 3 different brands, the Red Noodle strands are cloaked and twisted with Star's surface almost. While Green is on the way and Blue is pulled in the star. Let's see how it got noodles and how they help the star fight against gravity. One more thing, these lines are imaginary and modeled like the latitude and longitude lines of the Earth. This is a way to explain how stars and planets interact with outer and inner environments.

Star and its Magnetic Fields in 3 Types

Red lines:

These magnetic lines or noodles come from deep inside the core and the convective zone's differential rotation. Meaning the plasma of this region forms these Red lines and wraps the 99% star. It slows down the Rotation speed of the core, probably due to less turbulence of matter for fusion, and provides a slightly stable workspace. It also helps to form White dwarfs and Neutron Stars. Some studies also suggest it is connected with Supernova dynamics. These lines are sometimes called closed lines or surface lines because they always form a closed loop from the core to the surface of the star. When these lines connect or interact with other surface lines, they cause stellar flares or spots. Both are interesting events. Based on interaction and results, we can divide them into two parts.

Spots:

This is a topic of ongoing research and is directly linked to Surface magnetic lines. Since it is still unclear what they do to stars, we're not talking about their functions. Instead, we know something else here. In the image above, you see a Star with some dark spots, which shows what a stellar spot looks like. We see these spots have no clear boundaries, but it's a blurred region. There are two parts of it, one is called Penumbra, which is the surrounding less dark region, and the second, the central dark region, is called the umbra.

The Star spots

It is believed that these spots are indicators of stellar activity, like CMEs, flares, and other prominent explosions. There is a time for our sun in which Dark spots become scarce for around 11 years, called the Calm period, where Solar activities become less frequent as well as the spots. Another period of 11 years is called the Active period, where the Sun shows frequent activities like Magnetic Storms, CMEs and flares. A striking feature is that the spots always occur in pairs, possibly due to the arrangement of those red lines.

Strangely, this time the sun was calm for 22 years and now from 2025-26 it is entering in Active phase because only a few solar spots were seen this time, but now its spots are increasing in numbers. The sun would show massive activities for an unknown time because we don't know how long it will remain active, which is less harmful to humans and earthly lives but dangerous for Electronics, Satellites, GPS and Telecoms.

Flares:

These bright flashes are frequent when a star is in an active period, and they eject most of their energy from inner layers, like Convection zones. This includes huge emissions of X-ray or Gamma Ray, Stellar winds and gases and rarely plasma, unlike CMEs. Through Flares, they eject the overloaded energy from the Calm cycle. As long as the star remains in a calm period, its energy keeps accumulating and circulating in some amount, while 90% of the photospheric energy and its below it, energy keeps escaping in the form of heat and light.

The Red Star Showing Flares

But the Active period leads rapid formation of Stellar spots, and lines get more cluttered and sometimes form a knot. Plasma flows turbulently than before and sometimes causes an intense flash, which ejects energy in a tremendous amount. On Earth, the Sun sometimes shoots flares which destabilize Electronic equipment, the internet, and Satellite systems, etc. In M-type Stars, these lines are extremely twisted and clustered than the Sun., which leads to super powerful Stellar flares than the Sun. Like Proxima Centauri, where such a flare occurs at least once a year.

Green Lines:

These lines form when Plasma flows turbulently in convection zones, and they are also looped and focused around the Star. they have a major role in the direction of plasma, which stirs it and replaces the convective layers that carry the energy. sometimes these lines get clustered and cause massive explosions in the photosphere and corona. These are directly linked to CME Formations

CME:

Coronal Mass Ejection in B type Star

The Coronal Mass Ejection is a violent event in which plasma rises and travels many thousands of kilometers and its path depends on the twistiness of those green lines; sometimes, it never falls on the star's surface. These are very popular events among space fantasy lovers.

CMEs are an example of the Redistribution of plasma in the star; they may have numerous shapes, like filamentous, stretched, looping patterns, or just Volcanic eruption-like explosions. When these happen, enormous energy and Stellar wind charged particles are ejected into space. On Earth, these have similar effects to those of Solar flares. It releases tons of stellar material into space.

Some stars show this activity minimally, while others are somehow regular. for example, our sun does it once or twice in month. Betelgeuse is more like a CME and violent turbulence rather than a star. Blue stars have one of the most massive CMEs; their occurrence increases when the Star becomes older due to the ongoing Battle of Gravity and its enemies. 

The Massive CMEs sometimes occur so frequently that they can create a nebula-like structure, like we see around Betelgeuse, Eta Carinae, and UY Scuti, like old stars. Our sun will also release massive bursts of energy and plasma into space and eventually become a white dwarf in this process. While Massive stars can have so enormous flares and CMEs, sometimes it feels like the Star became a supernova, but the next day the star shines again. These are common yet one of the most beautiful events in the stars.

Blue lines:

These magnetic field lines are called open lines because they are connected in loops instead, they expand from Several AUs to some light years. These lines have a fascinating role, they are supported by charged particles of the Stellar wind and stop where they interact with Interstellar particle streams, which come from Nearby Stars, Supernovas, Black holes, etc. These blue lines reflect these cosmic rays and create a Blurred barrier which separates the Local Star environment from the Interstellar surroundings.

These Regions are the Astrosphere, where the Star's boundary finishes and outer space begins. however, Star's gravitational and magnetic influence barriers tend to ease out gradually rather than the Neighborhood Country borders. Our Sun has a zone called the Heliosphere where Solar wind particles cease traveling and fight an eternal war against other cosmic giants and entities. That's why we are still alive; otherwise, life on Earth would never have existed if these blue lines were not creating such a large shield as our Earth's magnetic field creates a safety sphere to tackle solar wind particles.

Here we discussed enough for today, we know many of other things are missed to explain, no problem, we'll tend to them in other posts. Have a nice day.