Red giant million kelvin) and establishes hydrostatic equilibrium. Over its main sequence life, the star slowly converts the hydrogen in the core into helium; its main-sequence life ends when nearly all the hydrogen in the core has been fused. For the Sun, the main-sequence lifetime is approximately 10 billion years. More-massive stars burn disproportionately faster and so have a shorter lifetime than less massive stars. When the star exhausts the hydrogen fuel in its core, nuclear reactions can no longer continue and so the core begins to contract due to its own gravity. This brings additional hydrogen into a zone where the
Omega Carinae Omega Carinae is a shell star, having a circumstellar disk of gas surrounding its equator. The luminosity class of III indicates it has evolved into a giant star, having exhausted the hydrogen at its core and left the main sequence. The effective temperature of 13,275 K in its outer envelope is what gives this star the blue-white hue that is characteristic of B-type stars. This star is rotating rapidly with a projected rotational velocity of , which gives a lower limit to the star's azimuthal velocity along the equator. The critical equatorial velocity, at which the star would begin to