Page 1 of 1 [ 10 posts ]
14 Dec 2011, 6:52 am
14 Dec 2011, 7:14 am
14 Dec 2011, 7:45 am
Oodain
Veteran
Joined: 30 Jan 2011
Age: 34
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,022
Location: in my own little tamarillo jungle,
14 Dec 2011, 8:24 am
14 Dec 2011, 10:03 am
14 Dec 2011, 7:56 pm
14 Dec 2011, 8:16 pm
20 Dec 2011, 6:41 am
dmm1010 wrote:
Oodain wrote:
i thought some elements were formed as a process of the fusion in superheavy stars as well, besides the obvious H and He of course,
other than that we are all indeed "star stuff"
other than that we are all indeed "star stuff"
Elements up to and including iron are sequentially assembled within the cores of stars. Hydrogen fuses into helium, helium fuses into carbon, and so on. This process converts mass to energy; e.g., a helium-4 nucleus is less massive than its four progenitor protons combined. It is this energy that causes a star to shine and keeps it from collapsing under its own gravity.
A star doesn't need to be super massive to eventually make elements that are heavier than helium; for example, stars that begin with at least one half solar mass will someday fuse helium into carbon.
It's the natural death of a star, when helium fuses into carbon, the star grows, as the fusion takes more energy, this happens until the process stops at iron. Stars themselves lack the energy to fuse carbon, thus the star sheds it outer layers.
The shedding of the outer layers is essentially an explosion, the shockwave compresses the core further, turning them into heavy remnants of the core as white dwarfs (complete atoms), Neutron stars (composed of neutrons), Quark stars (composed of quarks, the building blocks of protons, neutrons etc.) or a black hole. The rest of the energy in the shockwave has the power to fuse atoms past iron on the periodic table,
Nevertheless it's trippy that everything we see around us is made primarily from supernovae...
barnabear
Pileated woodpecker
Joined: 16 Sep 2011
Age: 64
Gender: Male
Posts: 189
Location: Hampshire, UK
29 Dec 2011, 6:36 pm
29 Dec 2011, 11:40 pm
