physics.org, your guide to physics on the web
Institute of Physics
Physics news


ccccc

We are all made of stardust. It sounds like a line from a poem, but there is some solid science behind this statement too: almost every element on Earth was formed at the heart of a star.

Next time you’re out gazing at stars twinkling in the night sky, spare a thought for the tumultuous reactions they play host to. It’s easy to forget that stars owe their light to the energy released by nuclear fusion reactions at their cores. These are the very same reactions which created chemical elements like carbon or iron - the building blocks which make up the world around us.

After the Big Bang, tiny particles bound together to form hydrogen and helium. As time went on, young stars formed when clouds of gas and dust gathered under the effect of gravity, heating up as they became denser. At the stars’ cores, bathed in temperatures of over 10 million degrees C, hydrogen and then helium nuclei fused to form heavier elements. A reaction known as nucleosynthesis.

This reaction continues in stars today as lighter elements are converted into heavier ones. Relatively young stars like our Sun convert hydrogen to produce helium, just like the first stars of our universe. Once they run out of hydrogen, they begin to transform helium into beryllium and carbon. As these heavier nuclei are produced, they too are burnt inside stars to synthesise heavier and heavier elements. Different sized stars play host to different fusion reactions, eventually forming everything from oxygen to iron.

During a supernova, when a massive star explodes at the end of its life, the resulting high energy environment enables the creation of some of the heaviest elements including iron and nickel. The explosion also disperses the different elements across the universe, scattering the stardust which now makes up planets including Ear

I like that riverhouse. Thanks for the info.

Question, (if you don't mind, of course): Did you live in a house by a river?

Quote
suncloud
I like that riverhouse. Thanks for the info.

Question, (if you don't mind, of course): Did you live in a house by a river?

Yes on the headwaters of the Mattole river in northern Ca. it is a north flowing river, not to many of those. it is not very impared like most rivers in usa, much restoration work with love, A GEM!
I lived in and owned Gopherville Ca for forty years on to recent time I moved to Lucrene Ca on Clearlake Ca. Cas largest Lake very nice but grately Impared.
I got name rivehouse bill because we had Two dollar bill, four coners bill and mayor Bill all on the same 80 acres. I grew pot comercial for over forty years there, new crowd today all about money, Home invasions murder out of control today. We still up in the Emerald Triangle have the highest rate of Activist anywhere in Amerika. I was part of core group Earth First. Largest setelment from FBI for wronging our group in US history goggle who bombed Judy Bari. Epic Envirmental Protection information center. We where Redwood Summer group. Also Im a life Member of the Aliance of Atomic Veterans, Was very active at Test site Mercury. Earth Fisrt and Epic have saved many thosands of acres over the decades.
We the Alince are the reason we no longer do testing of Nuclear bombs at Test Site Mercury. My batteries have been charged by the sucesse we had in our eforts.
I wish everyone knew of the powers they realy have thru activism.
But Like the 14th Dali Lama says. if you work many years for a cause and see no results- No Hard feelings.
Im a combat vet of the American war on vietnam, I dont fear much in this world ecept Nuclear energy and wepons. This Guy trump truely scares me yesterday you might have heard him say let the arms race begin. We spend 2 millon an hour 48 millon a day just to mantian arsenal. Insane as it gets. Go to other than health post and read Carl Sagans After nuclear war I posted. A little long but the most clear picture greastest danger to mankind. lets hurry and get this nut out and fight for our home. We all need to pay our rent to Mother Earth, we are in the rear and facing eviction peace and healing to all rhb



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 12/24/2016 04:31AM by riverhousebill.

That's why my respect for you riverhouse is over the moon.

Not that I'm personally a big fan of the kine, but your words resonate. And I remember Judy Bari (and how she was killed by a bomb in her car) - no phony conspiracy theory. The FBI copped to it and had to pay that huge settlement. And I remember Earth First, Redwood Summer, and the nuclear test site outside Las Vegas.

I haven't been as active as you of course, but my respect for your passion and commitment to something actually REAL, is over the moon.

Yes, I heard trump; and I'm in the generation of children who were told to hide under our desks at school - to keep us safe from nukes uh huh - and who were later maimed and killed in an unjust war (although we were not considered old enough to vote).

In the years since, it seems many of us have been successfully distracted by internet and cell phone folly, away from the very real issues that have always continued to matter. Well now I guess we may all be paying a very heavy price, at least for a while. Hopefully not forever if enough of us decide to wise up.

Judy did not die from the bombing directly, Although it cripeld her shatertwd her spine. she died of breast cancer not to long after but not before she reserched COINTEL the dirty tricks department of the FBI And busted them.Bomb was under her seat in car, blew up her butt shatterd spine. Under arrest in hospital first thing she said to FBI and Oakland police coming out of coma called cops And Rhicard Helms FBI dirty trickster over to bedside and said You Guys Blew the wrong end up.
Who Bombed Judy Bari? We know your out there still. Have you seen her cripled body or the spirit you could not Kill. Recntly FBI petiction court asking to destroy evidense Our Lawyers asked judge to preserve evidense beacuse of DNA. Judge agreed.FBI did not bomb her direct they created the air so someone would step up to do it for them and big lumber.
FBI tryed to make Earthfirst look like wacko violent movement in order to stop it.
thats why Oakland federal court awarded 6 million dollar judgement against those pigs. Jury wanted to award 25 millon but judge went with six The lies by FBI Cointel
went way to far. It galvinised our movement thousands came to support us after they blew it. Our Demockery. If you are an effetive activist and go against corpate America you may be killed. Cointel is the same group who payed millions for killing assination of black Panthers Richrard Helm Direted.
FBI payed Judy Bari and Darl Chernie because they were convicted of planting false evidense a lot of it. When bomb went off in car while they were in route UC Berkly to UC Sata Cruz in Oakland guesse who the first responders at bombing were? No other but rhichard helm and Oakland police who atentened bomb school held on Lumber Co land two weeks before. Judy said it was like he was standing around the conner with his fingers in his ears.. they were on scene of bombing within minutes. Bomb school was about car bombs 99 percent of car bombs are placed on exterier of cars. but this school was on interier car bomb placement
Judy Told Helm I want you guys to go out and find the Bomber Then Fire them.
What an amazing person Judy Bari. I feel so honord to have known her. Miss her very much. And thats just the tip of this whole thing.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/24/2016 08:57AM by riverhousebill.

Thanks for filling in on the details riverhouse. I do remember some now. I remember the FBI tried to say she and Darryl were carrying the bomb deliberately en route to committing some violent act. The bomb was under Judy's seat, and after the bomb went off, they were both arrested.

I didn't know Judy died of breast cancer later. So unfortunate. She was a hero for her cause, and a very brave woman. I'm so sorry for your loss.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/24/2016 09:16AM by suncloud.

Thankyou suncloud, yes they were arrested for blowing themself up. Alameda District attorney said no grounds for them to be charged. Cointel wanted to convict in press, not a court law.that would not work for them with the lies and phonie evidense
Judy was getting daily death threats, she complained to Mendocino sherrif, He responed saying Judy if they kill you we will investagate. It was a good old boy network in northern ca then most Das cops were in lumber co pockits
I was assalted with media wittness and da refused to charge had acul lawyer.
Media was told if they cooperated they would be fired and thats what did happen. But in the end we took that good ole boy network down got real District attorneys elected. and sherriffs. We used to call it the Deep North.
Another time Judy with her two chidren in car were hit wth loging truck and almost killed. I could go on and on about the level of corruption then in the deep north.
We had many people hurt. David Gypsy Chain was murderd by A E Amain a loger with Paciif Lumber co. who yelled to david put your hard hat on im sending this one your way droped tree on young david knocked his head off. Da wanted very much to charge but crime scene was destroyed . Never forget that young man! with Earth first just a few weeks from Texas. Today Headwaters Forrest the worlds largest stand of redwoods is in place only because of Earth first. it would have been logged to infinity if not for the mass arrest of over two thousand folks who came out for Judy after Bombing.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/24/2016 12:27PM by riverhousebill.

Are we made from stardust?

<< We are all made of stardust. It sounds like a line from a poem, but there is some solid science behind this statement too: almost every element on Earth was formed at the heart of a star. >>


That means we are all poetry in motion. Good to know.

quote la_varonique.
That means we are all poetry in motion. Good to know.


‘The Earth has made more than 4 billion circuits around the Sun since its origin (…) we have always been space travelers.’ – C. Sagan

To make an apple pie you need wheat, A pinch of this and a pinch of that, And the heat of an oven. The ingradients are made of molecules---sugar, say, or water.
The moecules in turn, made of atoms---carbon, oxyegen, hydrogen and a few others,
Where do these atoms come from? Except for hydrogen, they are all made in the stars.
A star is a kind of cosmic kitchen inside which atoms of hydrogen are cooked into heavier atoms.
star condense from interstellar gas and dust, which are composed mostly of hydrogen.
But the hydrogen was made in the Big Bang, the explosion that began the cosmos.

If you wish to make an apple pie from scrath, you must first invent the universe.

two trillion galaxies—10 times more than previously thought. Typical galaxies,


Spectacular revelations courtesy of Hubble
After 28 years in space, the Hubble Space Telescope is sending back some of its most beautiful and revealing images from across the vast universe.
2018
Jul 22
CORRESPONDENT
Bill Whitaker

When we look up at the stars, it's humbling to realize we're only getting a peek at what's up there, that way beyond what's visible to the naked eye lie wondrous galaxies we never knew existed… until the Hubble Space Telescope. For 28 years, since it was launched, Hubble has been sending us stunning images of the vast heavens. As we first told you in October, astronauts have repeatedly upgraded Hubble over the years, making its discoveries increasingly dramatic. Tonight, we'll take you back up to Hubble, and billions of lightyears beyond, to see some of its latest, most spectacular revelations.

ot-hubblevastfd.jpg
The Hubble Space Telescope NASA
NASA celebrates Hubble's birthday each year by giving us a gift -- a new, breath-taking view of our universe. The latest birthday card: this elegant swirl of galaxies dancing in tandem deep in space. Last year -- this bubble of stellar gases floating among the stars, like a diaphanous, cosmic jellyfish. Hubble has shown us radiant rose-shaped galaxies stretching across deep space; and dramatic towering clouds of gas teeming with the stuff of creation. Stars are born here. Year after year, in the infinite black canvas overhead, Hubble paints an ever-expanding picture of our universe -- an awe-inspiring light show for us to admire ... and for scientists to study.

AMBER STRAUGHN: I believe Hubble has been the single most transformative scientific instrument that we've ever built.

"Most transformative," says NASA astrophysicist Amber Straughn, because Hubble keeps improving our understanding of the universe. She showed us what Hubble discovered after staring for days into what seemed to be an empty black patch -- a deep, dark void -- in outer space.

straugn-whitaker-carina-nebula.jpg
NASA astrophysicist Amber Straughn and 60 Minutes correspondent Bill Whitaker CBS NEWS
AMBER STRAUGHN: The original Hubble deep field is located just above the Big Dipper. It's a part of the sky that most people are familiar with. It's a blank piece of sky.

"I believe Hubble has been the single most transformative scientific instrument that we've ever built."
BILL WHITAKER: So just nothing in here, just darkness.

AMBER STRAUGHN: Nothing at all. Complete darkness. And then, when we look at it with Hubble, what we see is thousands of galaxies.

BILL WHITAKER: Not just stars.

AMBER STRAUGHN: Right.

BILL WHITAKER: Galaxies.

AMBER STRAUGHN: Galaxies outside of our own. Something we never imagined.


BILL WHITAKER: Is it that Hubble just stares into that dark spot until the light penetrates and reveals itself?

AMBER STRAUGHN: That's exactly what happens. It's sometimes many, many, many days of just staring at one part of the sky and allowing the photons to collect on your detector.

BILL WHITAKER: And this is what's revealed.

AMBER STRAUGHN: And this is what's revealed.

But Hubble was just warming up. That was 23 years ago. Since then Hubble has stared deeper and longer into space with enhanced equipment.

AMBER STRAUGHN: In this particular image, there are 10,000 galaxies. So every single point of light is an individual galaxy, its own little island universe. And so this is a real visualization of the distances of these galaxies. So sort of like—

hubble-main.jpg
An image from the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA
BILL WHITAKER: Sort of 3D.

AMBER STRAUGHN: --3D, like we're flying though. So we can make these images 3D because we know how far away the galaxies are. What Hubble has essentially given us is the size of the universe. Hubble has taught us that the universe is filled with hundreds of billions of other galaxies.


And now the latest analysis of Hubble's data reveals there could be more than two trillion galaxies—10 times more than previously thought. Typical galaxies, like our Milky Way, have 100 billion stars. That means the total number of stars—or suns out there—is 2, followed by 23 zeros. That's called 200 sextillion. To get some sense of how many stars that is, we went to Adam Riess, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on Hubble.

ADAM RIESS: This is more stars in the visible universe than grains of sand on the beach.

BILL WHITAKER: --on Earth.

ADAM RIESS: On all the beaches on Earth.

BILL WHITAKER: And Hubble has shown us this?

ot-hubblevastc-starsinsag.jpg
This image, created by the Hubble telescope, shows a cluster of stars in the constellation Sagittarius NASA
ADAM RIESS: It has. In many cases, it has allowed us to see what some of the most distant galaxies look like and how many stars were in them. And we've been able to add it all up.

BILL WHITAKER: Hubble has been called a time machine -- that it looks back in time. What has been the most astounding part of that for you?

ADAM RIESS: I study explosions of stars called supernovae. It's like fireworks. It's only visible for a short period of time, in this case, a few weeks. And that light has been traveling to us for 10 billion years. It began its journey when the Earth wasn't even here, And over those 10 billion years, our planet formed. Life developed. We built the Hubble Space Telescope. We opened the aperture door. And in the last one-billionth of one percent of that journey that the light made, we opened the door just in time to catch it.

Hubble almost didn't catch anything. The first pictures it sent back were blurry because of a microscopic flaw in the mirror. The Space Agency launched a daring mission to fix it.

hubble-pic-6-grunsfeld.jpg
Meet the "Hubble repairman," astronaut John Grunsfeld NASA
Astronauts have made five trips to Hubble to repair and upgrade its equipment. John Grunsfeld, known as the Hubble repairman, flew three of those missions, to a telescope the size of a school bus, orbiting 300 miles above Earth.

JOHN GRUNSFELD: Just about anything that we can easily change and upgrade and fix has been fixed.

BILL WHITAKER: The workings of the telescope, all of that has been transformed.

JOHN GRUNSFELD: Yeah. It is like a new telescope.

BILL WHITAKER: On your last mission you come out of the airlock and you've got this big smile on your face.


JOHN GRUNSFELD: I thought, You know, I can't imagine anywhere I'd rather be than outside the space shuttle in my space suit next to the Hubble Space Telescope. I was just so happy.

Hubble has changed what we know about the universe—its structure, evolution, it's age—13.8 billion years. Hubble showed us the marvel and majesty of stars being born.

AMBER STRAUGHN: This is a region of gas and dust that's churning up new baby stars. And now we've learned with Hubble, not only stars but also baby planet systems.

BILL WHITAKER: Most of these stars have planets going around them?

AMBER STRAUGHN: Most stars actually do have planets. When I was a kid, we only knew of the planets inside our solar system. And now we know that the planets are absolutely everywhere.

Astronomer Heidi Hammel specializes in Hubble's work within our solar system. With the telescope she saw huge fragments of a comet slam into Jupiter creating giant impacts.

HEIDI HAMMEL: When I first heard that a comet was going to hit Jupiter, my reaction was, "Eh. So what? Jupiter's huge. Comets are small. And so when I saw the first impact site and it was huge and dark, I was flabbergasted. This is where the comet has smacked into the planet at such a high velocity that it's caused an explosion the equivalent of many, many millions of atomic bombs.

HEIDI HAMMEL: The Earth is the size of that ring. And so if this event, had happened on Earth it—


BILL WHITAKER: We're gone.

HEIDI HAMMEL: Yeah, We we call that a biosphere-changing event, which basically means we'd be gone.

Hubble orbits high, outside Earth's atmosphere so it can see a wide spectrum of light our atmosphere blocks. Beyond Earth's protective layer, Hubble's ultraviolet camera can spot dazzling displays like this glowing halo on top of Jupiter.

HEIDI HAMMEL: Up in the northern hemisphere what you're seeing is the glowing aurorae. An aurora happens when the planet's magnetic field has charged particles that interact with the upper atmosphere. What you're seeing there is actually charged particles from the sun. They get swept up in Jupiter's strong magnetic field. And then it's mirrored in that shimmering that you see inside the aurora oval.

BILL WHITAKER: And you would not be able to see that with an Earth telescope?

HEIDI HAMMEL: You could never see those aurorae because our atmosphere has an ozone layer that absorbs the ultraviolet light.

Hubble also found a similar blue hue at the bottom of Saturn. The telescope's most iconic picture is this: the pillars of creation, a stellar breeding place. Amber Straughn showed us what a difference Hubble's upgraded infrared camera made, just three years ago.

AMBER STRAUGHN: Stars are born inside these dust clouds. And this is gonna give you a clue on why infrared is so important is because in infrared light, what you see is the stars inside shining through.

BILL WHITAKER: You see the stars inside. How big is this cloud area?

AMBER STRAUGHN: Top to bottom, these pillars are about ten light years, which is about 60 trillion miles.

BILL WHITAKER: 60 trillion miles?

Breathtaking Hubble Telescope images
40 PHOTOS
Breathtaking Hubble Telescope images
AMBER STRAUGHN: Yes. Space is big.

"Big" and miraculous with constant celestial regeneration. Straughn calls this "the everything picture" because you can see old stars blowing up -- and new stars forming.

AMBER STRAUGHN: Any time you see these sorts of dark cloudy regions, you can imagine that there's stars being born inside there.

BILL WHITAKER: Where are the dying stars?

AMBER STRAUGHN: And the dying stars, we think that this one could explode any day, literally, or it could be a thousand years from now. But near near term in astronomers' --

BILL WHITAKER: In cosmic time, any day.

AMBER STRAUGHN: Right. So big stars, when they die, they explode and send their contents into the surrounding universe. And these contents are what seed future stars and future planets and help to seed life, ultimately. The iron in your blood and the calcium in your bones was literally forged inside of a star that ended its life like this.

BILL WHITAKER: So we are all stardust.

AMBER STRAUGHN: We literally are stardust. We are viscerally made of the stars. One of the things I think is remarkable about this image is it shows you how colorful the universe is.

BILL WHITAKER: This looks like contemporary art.

AMBER STRAUGHN: This is a very tightly bound group of stars. And what you see here is about 100,000 stars. This was one of the first images that Hubble's new camera, installed in 2009, this was one of the first images it took.

Blue stars are the youngest and hottest. White and yellow stars, like our sun, are mid-life; while red stars are the oldest and coolest. John Grunsfeld has a cool claim to fame. He's the last human to touch Hubble. He gave it a farewell pat.

BILL WHITAKER: Hubble was planned to live for 15 years. It's now been 27. How much longer can Hubble go?

JOHN GRUNSFELD: I'm reasonably confident it will continue another three to five years.

That means for a while at least, Hubble will work in tandem with its successor, the much larger James Webb telescope scheduled to launch in 2021. Webb should be able to detect light from the very earliest galaxies. The farthest back Hubble can see is this red blob, a galaxy from 400 million years after the Big Bang. Webb should take us much closer to the beginning of time.

JOHN GRUNSFELD: So the James Webb Space Telescope was specifically designed to see the first stars and galaxies that were formed in the universe. So we're gonna see the snapshot of when stars started. When galaxies started. The very first moments of the universe. And my bet? There's gonna be some big surprises.

Produced by Robert G. Anderson, Aaron Weisz and William Harwood.


Hubble's data reveals there could be more than two trillion galaxies—10 times more than previously thought. Typical galaxies,

Hubble has shown us so much. Hope to see shots from China scope that will see 40 % of our sky.



China has plans to build a new space telescope which could outperform Hubble. The new telescope, which has not been named yet, will have the ability to dock with China's modular space station the Tiangong-3, expected to launch in 2020

This is so very exciting, All this going on and we are hung up on accents and dancing, Job Performance. Ha HaHA stupid humans -aoc derangement syndrome.

Staring Down The Pipes Of Eternity.wow!

it's no exaggeration to say that the entire universe is at stake here... or at least our fundamental understanding of the universe.

And starting Wednesday, we just might enter that new era of understanding.

Excepting some the Alt science folks of course.

At 9.am.eastern time April 10th
Horizon Telescope are expected to unveil their long awaited pictures of a pair of putative black holes.

One of the objects sits at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, buried in the depths of interstellar dust and gas, and equivalent in mass to 4.1 million suns that otherwise have disappeared from the visible universe.

The other target is in the heart of Messier 87, a giant galaxy in the constellation Virgo, where a black hole 7 billion times the mass of the sun is spewing a jet of energy thousands of light-years across space.

In such shadows the dreams of physicists die, time ends, space-time, matter and light disappear into the primordial nothing from which they spring, and the ghosts of Einstein and Hawking mingle with history and memory. For the first time, astronomers will be staring down the pipes of eternity.

If, in fact, astronomers have finally brought the monsters into view at last. The Event Horizon team has been extremely tight-lipped. Nobody knows for certain if either of these black holes, if any, has been imaged.

Shep Doeleman, director of the Event Horizon Telescope, was ebullient but guarded when reached last week at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “The team is working exceptionally hard to quadruple-check all the results,” he said. But he and his colleagues are acting as if they have something to celebrate. The announcement of their results will take place simultaneously in six places around the world, reflecting the vast international nature of the collaboration. Dr. Doeleman and his colleagues created a telescope as big as Earth itself.

Japan just bombed an asteroid with a copper cannonball: Hayabusa2's tumultuous relationship with the asteroid Ryugu just got more dramatic.

What AncestryDNA taught me about the world of genetic testing: After spitting in a tube, I learned where my DNA comes from and where my data might go.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/10/2019 10:53AM by riverhousebill.

LOST STAR

When the creation was new and all the stars shone in their first
splendor, the gods held their assembly in the sky and sang
`Oh, the picture of perfection! the joy unalloyed!'

But one cried of a sudden
---`It seems that somewhere there is a break in the chain of light
and one of the stars has been lost.'

The golden string of their harp snapped,
their song stopped, and they cried in dismay
---`Yes, that lost star was the best,
she was the glory of all heavens!'

From that day the search is unceasing for her,
and the cry goes on from one to the other
that in her the world has lost its one joy!

Only in the deepest silence of night the stars smile
and whisper among themselves
---`Vain is this seeking! unbroken perfection is over all!'

Lost Star
Rabindranath Tagore



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/10/2019 11:36AM by riverhousebill.