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Astronomy

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    $\begingroup$ +1 for clarifying that not all hydrogen in the star is used up as fuel $\endgroup$
    – stux
    Commented Aug 13, 2022 at 20:01
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    $\begingroup$ So it's like recycling steel? You just keep mixing in more steel until the old tramp elements are diluted? $\endgroup$
    – DKNguyen
    Commented Aug 14, 2022 at 2:43
  • $\begingroup$ It seems to me that your first statement is incorrect and contradicted by the rest of the answer. New stars are formed by the nebulae, plus some other stuff. Can you clarify? $\endgroup$
    – Drake P
    Commented Aug 14, 2022 at 15:57
  • $\begingroup$ No, the stuff in the nebula mixes and enriches the interstellar gas. Stars don't form in the remnant nebula. For example, do you drink toilet water? But you know that that water from your toilet must ultimately go and mix with the rivers and oceans and then it could come back to your tap... but you would not say that the water that comes from your tap comes from the toilet. $\endgroup$
    – James K
    Commented Aug 14, 2022 at 16:14
  • $\begingroup$ @DKNguyen Somewhat. Tho the proportions about which we are talking is something like 10% of the mass in the nebula is going to end up in the star and a further 10-20% of these is going to be fused into heavier elements. Meaning about 98% of the initial hydrogen is still there. This results in the metallicity of the initial nebula not changing a whole lot during the lifetime of a single star. Population 1 ("Young") stars have about 10-100 times the metallicity of Population 2 ("older") stars. At the moment our Sun contains about 2% "metals". This started at about 1.5%. 1/2 $\endgroup$
    – SirHawrk
    Commented Aug 15, 2022 at 7:31