The universe is just a garden, page 1
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reply posted on 4-10-2009 @ 02:53 PM by Soylent Green Is People
reply to post by salsaking

Stars being born today are NOT being born too late. Don't forget, our Sun was also born "later" than many of the stars that exist today and had existed in the past.

The proof of this is the fact that we have an abundance of heavy elements in our solar system -- such as elements heavier than iron. Even some of the relatively lighter elements, such as carbon, can attest to the fact that our Sun was born late.

As far as we know, those heavy elements are only born in supernovae -- that's when heat and pressures are high enough to fuse basic elements into heavier elements. Stars born early in the life of the universe did not have these heavy elements -- they were balls of hydrogen (the lightest element) that were fusing atoms together to for helium. When those early star went supernova, the helium atoms fused together to form heavier atoms which drifted through space for several 100 million years until they formed new stars -- which lived their own lives before going supernova themselves -- thus creating yet heavier elements. Eventually, a cloud of these heavier elements coalesced into the disk that would eventually form our metal-rich solar system and Sun.

So all of the metals we use -- and probably all of the carbon that is in our bodies -- were created in long-dead stars that went supernova billions of years ago. Our Sun and solar system is probably made of materials from several generations of older stars. If our Sun was born early-on in the life of the universe, there would be no heavy elements to form our rocky world -- and we would not exist.

Like Carl Sagan once said, "We are made of star-stuff" -- meaning that almost all of the atoms in our bodies heavier than hydrogen we once inside of stars.

There are stars out there right now being formed from heavy element-rich clouds, such as the one that begot our solar system.


[edit on 10/4/2009 by Soylent Green Is People]
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