New observations of a huge star cluster, made using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT), have shown that the way in which stars evolve and end their lives depends on the amount of sodium they contain.
Detailed computer models predict that stars of a similar mass to the Sun would have a period towards the ends of their lives, called the asymptotic giant branch (AGB), when they undergo a final burst of nuclear burning and puff off a lot of their mass in the form of gas and dust.
By: Jenny Winder, SEN.com, Edited by: Kadhim Shubber
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via Wired.co.uk
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-06/04/sodium-evolution-of-stars
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