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10. Stars and galaxies
| 10.6 |
The origin of stars
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| To explain the birth and origin of stars, we must talk about things called "nebulae". A nebulae is a cloud of fine particles and gases, mainly hydrogen. The hydrogen molecules are formed at the colliding of the very first shockwaves of sub-atomic particles as we discussed earlier at the birth of the Universe. The larger dust particles are almost certainly the refuse of supernova explosions (explosions of stars, creating heavier elements). | ||||||
| Nebulae are found in three places: | ||||||
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| The width of a particular nebulae at the edge of a galaxy can be several light years in diameter, while independent nebulae clouds, separated for the moment from galaxies can be many hundreds of light years in diameter. | ||||||
| The concept of the first stage in the evolution of stars (nebulae) was first put forward by the British physicist, William Thomson, Lord Kelvin (1824-1907) and the German polymath Hermann von Helmholtz ( 1821-94) and is often known as the Kelvin-Helmholtz contraction. | ||||||
| 10.6.1 | How do nebulae come together? | |||||
| In earlier chapters we have explained at length the importance of common spin to create greater form. The particles at the birth of the Universe were created relatively closely. Therefore at the birth of the Universe, nebulae were created relatively quickly. | ||||||
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| But as the Universe grew into more complex structures and then broke down through the laws of attraction and repulsion, like spin particles found themselves literally hundreds of millions of kilometres from other like spin particles. | ||||||
| Like spin particles of hydrogen have no attraction to one another to form more complex shapes, unless forced under tremendous het into more complex shapes. What is needed are more complex shapes that hydrogen can "bond" to- hence the dust being the catalyst for hydrogen. | ||||||
| Yet, even the dust has such a small rate of attraction to lonely hydrogen atoms spinning through the voids of space. What is needed are "great attractors"- structures that have such immense like spin attraction that a hydrogen atom can be attracted and zero in on the structure from a distance of millions upon millions of kilometres. | ||||||
| Galaxies of hundreds of thousands of stars and solar systems that have already formed are such "great attractors" to the humble hydrogen atom. This is why we find the cradle of stars for the Milky Way on the edge of the galaxy instead of at the centre of the galaxy. | ||||||
| At the centre of galaxies, nebulae are formed from exploding stars, principally because of the greatest attractors of stars- massive destructive attractors- neutron stars- or as popular science likes to call them- "Black Holes". | ||||||
| Meanwhile, existing nebulae that have formed to a sufficient size can have a strong enough attraction to pull in loose hydrogen atoms from nearby (millions of kilometres) space. | ||||||
| The hydrogen and larger particles (for consistency sake we will call dust) come together from all directions, creating a rough cloud of gas that can be more than 2 light years in diameter, while at the same time being very col, at around 50 particles per cubic centimetre (around 80K, or -200C). | ||||||
| 10.6.2 | The process within a nebulae to create stars and solar systems (heavy particle orbiters) | |||||
| As hydrogen and dust particles arrive on the outside of a nebulae cloud, the particles at the centre of the cloud are attracted from the opposite direction outwards to meet the new arrivals. | ||||||
| This means that the very centre of a nebulae cloud is largely a space with no hydrogen particles or dust, much like an eye of a storm. Nebulae can have, given the resultant distortions of attraction and repulsion, more than one "centre", rather like the shape of a peanut, or even three centres, like the shape of a clover. | ||||||
| The nebulae can also have rotation as the hydrogen and heavier particles start to form orbits. However the critical moment of fusion that actually forms stars will only occur when the nebulae reaches a critical mass, in other words that there are sufficient new arrivals and existing particles in loose orbits to begin attraction in such close proximity and levels of het that greater structures are formed. | ||||||
| For this reason, small nebulae may continue to collapse on themselves and expand, trying to create new stars until such time as there is sufficient mass of hydrogen and heavier particles. Hence, we see nebulae not in consistent shapes but an infinite number of weird and wonderful shapes, warped by failed, or even in the successful birth process of stars. | ||||||
| 10.6.3 | The critical moments of star creation | |||||
| Step (1)- increased attraction- the storm cloud | ||||||
| Once there are sufficient new arrivals and existing hydrogen and heavy particle friends, they move closer, and begin to rotate, causing the cloud to accelerate in rotation, again creating a space at the centre, like the eye of a storm . | ||||||
| NOTE: This is a concept, amazingly science has not yet grasped. Some physicists believe that the hottest part of the nebulae is the centre. They forget, or simply do not consider that in a nebulae cloud of similar atomic level matter, there is no great attractor at the centre. Secondly, if there were a larger structure at the centre of a nebular cloud already, then we would never see the rapid increase in temperature and fusion process required to create stars. The nebulae cloud would in general terms be a "dud". | ||||||
| Step (2)- the collapse of the storm cloud and increased temperature | ||||||
| This is called contraction as the actual combined pressure of the outer regions of the nebulae becomes greater than the inner regions, with its hollow centre. This causes the nebulae to shrink in overall size, but increase in relative density to such a point that the most tightly packed areas of hydrogen (close, but not actually at the centres) reach temperatures in excess of 10 million degrees Celsius. | ||||||
| Step (3)- nuclear fusion begins close but not at the centre of the cloud | ||||||
| At that point, nuclear fusion reaction starts and we see the creation of helium on the edges of the most tightly packed shockwaves as the nebulae cloud continues to contract. | ||||||
| At the centre of the shockwave, temperatures continue to increase as the nebulae cloud continues to collapse inwards, creating some heavier particles such as carbon and oxygen until eventually the inner edge of the shockwave undergoing fusion is pushed in on itself and forms a ball of nuclear fusion hydrogen. | ||||||
| At that point a nuclear fusion reaction starts with hydrogen atoms broken down and reconstituted into helium and a range of other particles. This process takes one of two forms, depending on the temperature reached by the core, either the proton-proton reaction, as in our own Sun, or the more complex, six stage, carbon nitrogen cycle in heater stars. The length of time this goes on, depends on the size of the star and is less than a million years in the case of most massive stars. Thanks to enough investigation by scientists, we now know that our Sun is a fairly standard but comparatively small size. Such a star continues in this stage for a period of about ten million years. | ||||||
| Stars with masses of at least 0.4 times that of the Sun can proceed to a further sequence of nuclear-fusion reactions in which helium is converted to carbon and heavier elements. | ||||||
| Step (4)-the forces outwards are overwhelmed by the forces inwards | ||||||
| As the contraction of the cloud continues the inner edge of the nuclear shockwave is pushed in on itself creating a massive ball of hydrogen- but with the most intense fusion occurring on the outer edges of the ball, as the ball now is totally pushed inwards by the outer compression shockwaves. | ||||||
| Step (5)- a giant nuclear explosion at the outer edges of the ball of nuclear fusion hydrogen | ||||||
| As the contraction of the cloud continues, the ball of hydrogen in a state of intense nuclear fusion, but with greater temperature at its surface reaches a critical point whereby the forces of compression turn rapidly to the forces of expansion from the massive nuclear fusion activity on the outer surface of the new born star- | ||||||
| The new born star then explodes outwards, and in a final moment of nuclear fused creation, creates even heavier particles such as iron. | ||||||
| Step (6)- creation of planets, asteroids and smaller neighbour stars | ||||||
| The force of the explosion outwards causes the shockwave and the cloud to be ripped apart. | ||||||
| The first things to be hurtled outwards are lighter elements, forming globules, and attempting to repeat the process of star creation. These later become Jovian like planets, and more often than not, create the second star of the system (e.g. like our Jupiter might one day come). The second wave is the heavier elements, the irons, silicons and oxygens. | ||||||
| They group into globules that gradually become the heavier inner structures of the new solar system (such as Earth, Venus, Mars, Mercury). Finally in the centre, is the greatest amount of hydrogen and particles of heavier elements. It is the largest of the stars of the new solar system. | ||||||
| What we are left with after the nebulae began creation is not just a star, or two or three stars, but a solar system. A stable arrangement of giant attractor, with smaller attractors combining to form a balance of 1:1 like a giant atomic particle. | ||||||
| Planets therefore are a natural consequence of star formation, just as asteroid belts are. For every of the hundred billion stars in our Galaxy, the Milky Way, there will be or had been planets orbiting, in various shapes and sizes and orbits. | ||||||
| 10.6.4 | The rules for collapsing nebulae to create stars are the same | |||||
| You may understand the implication of this point, that planets are natural consequences of star creation. Yet let us push this further. | ||||||
| We know that there is a critical range for all nebulae to start the process of compression and eventually create stars. This can also explain why some larger nebulae create solar systems with three stars and why smaller nebulae that still reach the critical range create two and one star solar systems. | ||||||
| But it also means that the process of creation MUST follow similar paths, within a certain range. That is, a central star is formed, there are inner planets and there are outer stars or dormant stars, still further outer planets and ultimately the outer cloud of asteroids. | ||||||
| There is pattern and therefore there must be symmetries. This means that size of planets, size of smaller stars, distance of orbit, concentrations of heavier elements must fall into some symmetrical pattern for ALL star systems that we now see must ALL be (or had been) solar systems. We will return to this in the next chapter, when we discuss the concept of life. | ||||||
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