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Asked by buddingscientist to Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila, Nazim on 14 Mar 2012. This question was also asked by yassie.
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Adam Stevens answered on 14 Mar 2012:
Stars are mainly made up of hydrogen, with a bit of helium. They also have tiny amounts of other stuff in them, but it’s the hydrogen that’s important.
As they burn the hydrogen for fuel it gets turned into heavier elements like lithium and beryllium. Eventually these will also get burned for fuel, and it might mean that carbon is created in the star. In a particular circumstance it might be possible for the whole core of the star to turn into carbon. Given the high pressure, the carbon would probably be in a diamond structure, so yes, there might be stars made of diamond!
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Leila Battison answered on 18 Mar 2012:
Stars are made up of all of the elements, up to iron (I used to know why they couldn’t go any further than iron, but I’ve forgotten!), but mostly hydrogen and helium.
There’s quite a bit of carbon in stars, especially in the core where there is bound to be tonnes and tonnes of pressure on them, and the high pressure might just make the carbon into diamonds. Now, wouldn’t that be a sight to see?!
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Nazim Bharmal answered on 21 Mar 2012:
Mainly of gas, I’m afraid. At the start it is usually hydrogen, and then that is turned into helium because of the nuclear reactions. When the hydrogen runs out, you start getting more complicated reactions and eventually some stars managed to create carbon and beyond up to iron.
All the heavier elements can’t be created inside a star, they are made only when a star explodes (goes supernova). That won’t happen to our Sun, so this star will only contain the elements hydrogen to iron.
I have read that some of the giant planets might have a lot of carbon in their centres, which could well turn into diamond, since you create diamond when you squeeze carbon under high pressure and heat.
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