A question for my fellow DUers interested in the stars... [View all]

[SWBTATTReg]

A question that perhaps someone can answer for me. I do read quite a bit and so forth, but 1 thing still escapes me. We all (most of us) know that stars form by hydrogen / helium gases (in clouds scattered throughout the universe) collapsing under the weight of so much gas, and eventually, after a certain point, enough gases and pressure has built up that nuclear fusion starts, and you have 'liftoff' or a brand new star.

I am assuming that this process occurs once a certain threshold of gases and pressure is achieved.

However, there are massive stars that from 10 to a 1000 times the size of our sun.

Why didn't these massive stars start burning as stars when they already had enough pressure and material after 1 solar mass of material available, e.g., like our own sun? Or put in another way, how did these super-sized stars manage to gather so much material before igniting into a star? If it ignited at 1 solar mass (like our own sun), then all other incoming gases etc. would have been pushed away by the solar winds.

So, how does a star gather up so much more material than our own sun before igniting?

Thanks for any thoughts and light you may shed on this (pun was not intended, purely accidental)!?