Editing Compact object (section)

==Lifetime==
Although compact objects may radiate, and thus cool off and lose energy, they do not depend on high temperatures to maintain their structure, as ordinary stars do. Barring external disturbances and [[proton decay]], they can persist virtually forever. [[Black holes]] are however generally believed to finally evaporate from [[Hawking radiation]] after trillions of years. According to our current standard models of [[physical cosmology]], all stars will eventually evolve into cool and dark compact stars, by the time the Universe enters the so-called [[heat death of the universe|degenerate era]] in a very distant future.

A somewhat wider definition of ''compact objects'' may include [[Substellar object|smaller solid objects]] such as [[planet]]s, [[asteroid]]s, and [[comet]]s, but such usage is less common. There are a remarkable variety of stars and other clumps of hot matter, but all matter in the Universe must eventually end as dispersed cold particles or some form of compact stellar or substellar object, according to [[thermodynamics]].