- 1698 - How rare are we in the Universe? We are made of elements created in exploding stars. Our world has such abundance but how rare is this abundance in the Universe?
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--------------------------- 1698 - How rare are we in the Universe?
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- How small are we in the scheme of things, universally speaking. Where did we come from? When did we get here? How and why is religion and that is way above my pay grade. Here is some low cost astronomy and physics lessons to put in perspective how rare are we?
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- We think that the total mass-energy in the Universe is 28% matter, with its gravity, and 72% anti-gravity, called Dark Energy. Of that 28% matter, 23% is Dark Matter and only 5% is Ordinary Matter. Ordinary Matter is what makes up everything we know about in our “world“. We do not know what Dark Matter is? But, it is responsible for the structure of the galaxies and clusters of galaxies. We do not know what Dark Energy is but it is responsible for accelerating the expansion of space between all the galaxies.
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- For ever 1 million lightyears of space galaxies are receding each other by 47,000 miles per hour. Space every where in the Universe is expanding. The rate of expansion is called Hubble’s Constant. All matter us getting rarified as space gets bigger.
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- Now that 5% Ordinary Matter, 75% is Hydrogen and 25% is Helium. That is what our Sun and the stars and most of the Universe are made of. Hydrogen and Helium were originally created in the Big Bang. But, what makes all the elements in the rest of the Solar System? The moons , planets, and all biology is in the tenths of percentile of that Ordinary Matter dominated by Hydrogen and Helium. Everything outside the Sun and the stars can be considered rare, trace elements.
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- Where did the trace elements heavier than hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium come from if they were not created in the beginning of the Universe? Hydrogen is one proton. Helium is two protons, Lithium 3, Beryllium 4 , Boron 5. But, all protons are positive charges. Like charges repel each other. How do the protons get combined in the nuclei of atoms to become heavier elements
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- Putting 2 protons together to make Helium takes a tremendous amount of pressure and very high temperatures. It is like put the north poles of two magnets together, they just refuse to touch until overpowered by a greater force. The center of the Sun has enough pressure and temperature to accomplish the creation of Helium from two Hydrogen protons.
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- Stars like the Sun did not form until after 400,000,000 years of expansion and cooling of the Universe. Hydrogen and Helium gas throughout space began to concentrate due the gravity of their collective mass. Eventually the concentration got so great and the density and pressure so great that the .like positive electric forces of protons broke down and Hydrogen converted in to Helium. The star’s core became a fusion furnace burning Hydrogen and creating Helium and creating energy.
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- Two protons are slightly heavier than the Helium nucleus containing the 2 protons. The difference in mass was converted directly to energy, E = m*c^2. The energy was in the form of Gamma Ray radiation to make the stars shine. It is the energy generated in the fusion process.
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- Our Sun is a medium size star that has enough gravity to create this Hydrogen to Helium fusion process. In fact the Sun contains enough Hydrogen to fuse Helium for 10 billion years. The truly massive stars will burn so fast there fusion furnace will only burn for a few hundred million years.
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- Our Sun is a 2nd or 3rd generation star. When our Solar System was formed around the Sun there were elements in orbit that came from the explosions of other previously massive stars. It was these other elements that created the moons, planets, and biology of life circling out Sun.
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- The Sun’s fusion still provides the energy. Gamma Rays emitted at the core scatter through the helium and hydrogen atoms for 40,000 years to reach the surface. The Gamma Rays loose much of their energy in this journey to the surface and the leave as much lower energy, green light. It takes only 8 minutes of this sunlight to reach the Earth and to scatter in the upper nitrogen atmosphere creating the blue sky and the yellow Sun to us observers on the surface of Earth.
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- In 5 billion years from now our Sun will have fused all the hydrogen in to helium, the helium will fuse into carbon and oxygen. Then fusion will stop. The gravity pressure is not great enough to fuse the heavier elements. It takes a bigger star. Our star will die as a planetary nebula leaving behind a White Dwarf star of carbon and oxygen. With no fusion to create energy it will gradually cool to a cold cinder floating in space.
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- But , if the star is more massive fusion would continue into the heavier elements releasing Gamma Ray energy at each step. Carbon atom’s nuclei would fuse adding protons to form neon, then magnesium, silicon, sulfur, argon, calcium , iron, nickel. Iron would have 56 protons. At that juncture in the fusion the process changes. Iron absorbs energy in gathering another proton rather than emitting energy. Its nucleus is heavier than the sum of the 56 protons. How do the elements heavier than iron get created?
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- When the iron core of the massive store receives pressure beyond this point another process change occurs. The atoms are mostly empty space with a small nucleus at the center and a cloud of electrons orbiting. When the pressure exceeds the ability of the electrons to orbit they collapse into the nuclei protons to form neutrons. The center of the star becomes a Neutron Star. The collapse of the electrons causes a tremendous rebound at the center creating a shockwave and a massive release of neutrinos. The star’s explosion is called a supernova.
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- The shockwave blasts through the shells of the lighter elements that surrounded the heavier iron core. The energy is immense, 10 billion times more than the total energy from the Sun. Put another way, since the Sun has a lifetime of 10 billion years, the supernova releases more energy in one second then the Sun releases in its entire lifetime.
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- The energy of this shockwave blasting through the lighter elements fuses all the heavier elements above iron, up to lead and uranium. It is fission energy added to these nuclei to create heavier elements with a greater number of protons in the nucleus. In fact Uranium is so heavy it will decay releasing its fission energy in its natural state. That is how we get the 90 elements in the periodic table. That the is source of the rare elements that make all the moons, planets, and biology. Getting biology out of this process is probably the rarest process.
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- How rare are supernovae exploding in our Galaxy? They have in the past and some are likely in the future. See Review # 1699 to learn of the potential massive star explosion occurring close to home.
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