helium flash

noun

1. astronomy the explosive burning of helium in the case of a star of low mass that occurs when the core is so dense that the matter has become degenerate. The burning causes a rapid rise in temperature until it is so high that the gas ceases to be degenerate, after which there is a rapid expansion

Example Sentences

By using yet another kind of standard candle—stars called red giants that, on the verge of extinction, undergo a “helium flash” that reliably indicates their luminosity—Freedman and her colleagues had arrived at a value that, as their paper said, “sits midway in the range defined by the current Hubble tension”: 69.8 ± 0.8—a result that offers no reassuring margin-of-error overlap with that from either SH0ES or Planck.

From Scientific American

This process culminates in a “helium flash,” a rapid brightening due to a surge in helium burning, after which a star dramatically dims.

From Scientific American

Astrophysical models can accurately predict the highest temperatures and pressures at which a helium flash takes place, allowing researchers to discern the peak brightness a red giant can reach.

From Scientific American