SECTION #2: THE LIFE CYCLE OF STARS
Even though stars are not living things, we think of them as having a "life cycle." All stars form, or are "born," and when they run out of the hydrogen fuel needed to do nuclear fusion, they "die." Just what happens to a star throughout its life cycle depends on its mass. Low mass stars like the Sun live longer and die differently than larger, high mass stars which lives for a short period of time.
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Small and average stars, like the Sun, will undergo a relatively peaceful and beautiful death that sees them pass through a planetary nebula phase to become a white dwarf, which eventually cools down over time and stops glowing to become a so-called "black dwarf".
Massive stars, on the other hand, will experience a most energetic and violent end, which will see their remains scattered about the cosmos in a enormous explosion, called a supernova. Once the dust clears, the only thing remaining will be a very dense star known as a neutron star, these can often be rapidly spinning and are known as pulsars. If the star which explodes is especially large, it can even form a black hole.
