- What was the most interesting thing that you have learned this unit? (3 sentence minimum)
- What is one question you still have? (2 sentence minimum)
Monday, November 4, 2013
Astrosphere Wrap Up
Over the course of this unit, we spent a lot of time learning about stars, space, and light. We've looked at how stars form and die, and have also researched how scientists use light to study those processes. This is your time to reflect on what you've learned and what you are still wondering. We will have an opportunity to ask some of you lingering questions to an astrophysicist at Oxford University, so make it an AWESOME question. Please answer BOTH of the following questions:
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The most interesting thing that I have learned about in this unit is how scientists determine a star's age. I was very surprised to see that there was actually a set way that they determined this and I was super excited to learn about it. I thought that it was really interesting and I would love to know even more.
ReplyDeleteOne question that I still have is: why hasn't anyone created some sort of device that allows scientists and astronauts to get close to black holes? This would be something that could increase the ability for some young people to see beyond the stars. Everyone always wants to know what a black hole looks like from the inside and how it gets its power. This would be how those wonders get answered.
the most interesting thing that i learned this unit was the outcome of the fusion that a star has on the elements that it contains. I think that this was the most interesting thing because I never knew that the outcome of fusion puts out a small amount of pure energy. This is why I think this is the most interesting thing I've come across.
ReplyDeleteI think that there is still one question that was unanswered for me. The question that I have is How are we able to comprehend fusion even if it only works for a brief moment ?
1:The most interesting thing I learned was about the stars, telling if they are old or young. And to tell how many elements they have in them.
ReplyDelete2: How to convert something into a different unit?
The most interesting thing I learned in this unit was the life cycle of a star and how it is formed. This was the most interesting thing I learned, because I think stars are interesting, and I did not know much about them before this unit.
ReplyDeleteOne question I still have is what is the biggest star in the universe.
The biggest stars in the Universe were probably some of the first stars that formed. Let's say you have a huge cloud of gas with a total mass of, say, a thousand times the mass of the sun. And let's say that it's cold and dense enough that it could start to collapse and form stars. How many stars that cloud will eventually form, and of what masses, depends on what the gas cloud is made of. Early in the universe, before the first stars made all the elements greater than hydrogen and helium, well, there weren't any of those things. And those elements help cooling gas clouds fragment into smaller clouds before they form stars, so the earliest gas clouds wouldn't have fragmented as much, and would have made fewer, but much larger, stars.
DeleteWe think those stars may have been a hundred or a few hundred times the mass of the sun. They would have lived very short lives (for an astronomer, "very short" means millions of years) and exploded violently, and the heavier elements they made would have enriched the remaining gas clouds and made the next generation of stars to form much smaller in mass. So, the biggest stars were the first stars -- but they're all gone by now.
1. The most interesting thing I learned this unit is the electromagnetic scale. I enjoyed learning about it because I find it interesting that all the waves go different places but we can only see few.
ReplyDelete2. One question I still have is why can see some waves but not all of them.
The most interesting thing I learned this unit was how stars are made and how they die. I thought it was really interesting to learn about a star's life cycle because I never knew that before
ReplyDeleteOne question I still have is are pv cells gonna create out energy in the future?
The most interesting thing I have learned this unit is how I can tell how old a star is. You can figure it out just by knowing whats inside the star and what it is made out of. I found this very fascinating and fun to learn about. One question I still have is why does nuclear fusion start. Like how and what causes nuclear fusion.
ReplyDeleteHeat and pressure! Fusion happens when conditions get hot enough, and there's enough atoms around to collide with each other. When both of those things happen, the atoms will collide with enough energy to fuse the nuclei together and make a heavier atom. That's what turns a star on -- gravity causes a ball of gas to try and collapse forever, and when it gets hot enough in its core for fusion to start, the energy released by fusion provides an extra pressure that holds the star up against further collapse. Gravity and pressure eventually find a balance, and they'll continue like that as long as there's enough fuel for further fusion (and thus pressure from the energy released).
DeleteNote, though: once a really massive star gets to the point where it has fused lighter stuff into iron, then it's done using fusion to hold itself up. It's a particular property of atomic physics that fusing atoms together to create anything lighter than iron releases energy -- and anything heavier than that needs to *take* energy from its surroundings in order to work. So fusion heavier than iron doesn't create energy/pressure -- it removes it. Within a star, that means that once fusion goes past iron, gravity starts winning faster and faster, which is what causes the rapid collapse during a supernova. Lower-mass stars, which never get hot enough to make iron, never reach that point, so they don't explode.
The most interesting thing I learned in this unit was the star cycle. It interested me how many steps there are in the life cycle of a star. I thought all the pictures and descriptions on the steps were amazing. I think many people would be shocked that stars have a life cycles kind of like humans.
ReplyDeleteOne question I still have is have we ever been able to get a real picture of a black hole or supernova?
The most interesting thing I learned in this whole unit was the life cycle of a star. I thought that this was easily the coolest thing because I was always wondering what a black hole was in middle school and in high school I got my answer. Also I really thought the life cycle was cool because how far away stars are and how big they get and how there size affects there outcome.
ReplyDeleteOne question I still have is how you figure out the mass of a object on the periodic table? I didn't understand this during the Unit because I wasn't very good at it last year.
The most interesting thing I think we have learned through out this unit is when we talked about waves. I liked learning about what kind of waves there are in the electromagnetic spectrum. I also liked learning about the life cycle of a star.
ReplyDeleteOne question I still have is about mechanical waves. I know sound is a mechanical wave, but why? What is the medium that it has to go through to reach our ears? What kind of mediums do mechanical waves go through. Also, what do we use different elements for? Like the rare earth elements and other elements made by supernovas?
The most interesting thing I learned this year was the different waves and the different parts of them. It was the most interesting thing I learned because there are so many things to learn about the waves.
ReplyDeleteOne question I have is if we can detect somehow when stars are going to change either with a supernova or a black hole.
The most interesting thing I learned this unit was learning about the different stages the stars go through throughout their lifecycle. I never knew that they had specific ways and that they had a process to follow to become a star.
ReplyDeleteWhat I am still wondering is how do people determine and how did they determine how and what stage each star goes through and what stage it is at.
The most interesting thing I learned this unit was about the stars life cycle. I find it very interesting how many different stages stars go through, how size determines the outcome, and how stars are what create every thing in our universe.
ReplyDeleteThe one question I have is why cant we get a picture of a black hole?
The most interesting thing I have learned this unit is that the way that a star ends depends on it's mass. When a star has a large mass it turns into a black hole which I find very cool. If a star has a smaller mass it has a less dramatic end and becomes a white dwarf. Supernovas occur when the mass is either medium or large.
ReplyDeleteOne question I still have is what causes a star to heat up as hot as it gets? Is there some sort of a reaction that occurs that makes it heat up?
The most interesting thing I learned this unit is how heavy elements are created. I think that it's really cool that stars are what have created some of the elements we have on earth today. I think it's really cool.
ReplyDeleteOne question I still have is: How are PV cells going to change how we live?
The most interesting thing I learned about this unit was fusion and the process. It really interested me how moving particles can make new elements. Also, learning about the life cycle of a star was cool.
ReplyDeleteOne question I had was, I know sound is a mechanical wave but what is the medium that it goes through to get to our ears? What are some of the mediums that mechanical waves go through? What are elements formed during a supernova used for?
I found it amazing how all of the different kind of metals came off of an exploding star. Like platinum, gold and diamond! This was usually off of an older star and a very very big star. What does and exploding star look like? I would have loved to see more pictures
ReplyDeleteSupernovae happen very fast and the star itself is very small, so not really easy to observe with telescopes we have now. But here's a movie simulating what happens as a star begins to explode:
Deletehttp://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/home/213555041.html
(sorry for the overdramatic music)
And if you want to see some more pictures, try this:
https://www.google.com/search?q=supernova+remnant&tbm=isch
Enjoy!
One thing that I have learned that I thought was interesting is there are different sizes of start. I always thought that there was one size, but actually there are 3 sizes, and they all have a different name. They all start out their life on the same way, but after the red giant stage is over they will change.
ReplyDeleteOne question I still have is after a star in completely formed, how do the stars become a constilation?
The most interesting thing I learned about this unit would have to be the stars and they're life cycle and how there are different types of stars and what they are made up of.
ReplyDeleteOne question I still have is what is the medium that a mechanical wave has to reach in order to reach our ears and why does there have to be a medium? Why can't we hear the high and lows what can hear the highs and lows and what can't hear the medium? Also will scientists find a way to go through a black hole and what actually happens inside a black hole?
The most interesting thing I learned in this unit would be learning the star life cycle. The star life cycle intrigued me because of the ability of what a star can do. Also I found it interesting how large and hot stars can get and what elements they can produce in its life span. The question I still have from this unit is how a star actually begins. I can't seem to wrap my head around the fact that stars start to form because of gravity. Along with that, how did the helium in a nebula get there in the first place?
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting thing i learned was that we are discovering super massive black holes. One thing i would like to learn is what happens when you get sucked into a black hole.
ReplyDeleteThe most Interesting thing I have learned about in the this unit of star is how black holes are formed.Another think i thought interested me is that how the sun is only a white dwarf and not a black hole sun which is a good thing i hope.last thing is that after the red giant is formed it start making heavier elements such as iron and lead.
ReplyDeleteMy one question that i still have is after the our sun has blown up will another sun start form in or will we have to live in darkness for the rest of our live and polute the world even more.How long will it take till the sun blows up?
The Sun will run out of fuel in about 4.5 billion years (so we have about 4,500,000,000 more orbits around the Sun to go). At that point it will have fused all the hydrogen in its core into helium. It won't ever get hot enough to fuse helium into even heavier elements (more massive stars can do this after they run out of hydrogen in their cores), so from that point on it will start to die.
DeleteIt won't explode, though -- our Sun isn't massive enough to ever go supernova. It will go through a red giant phase, where it becomes physically *much* larger than it is now. In fact, it will envelop Mercury and Venus and expand out to just about the size of the Earth's orbit. So, darkness won't be our problem. If we don't end up inside the Sun, its new surface will be so nearby that, even though it will be cooler than its current surface, it will be so much closer that we are likely going to be burnt to a crisp.
Hopefully we'll have found somewhere else to live by then...
Hmm... I realized earlier today that I should clarify this: the Sun won't burn Helium in a slow, steady way for billions of years the way it did with Hydrogen, but the end of life after the giant phase I mentioned includes some Helium burning. I was trying to keep things simple, but missed some cool details. Oops!
DeleteThe most interesting thing I learnt during this unit was how when the atoms in the stars fuse together to form bigger elements such as metals. I thought it was cool because the more elements the more colors it gives off. A question I still have is if it is possible for a star to have so much nuclear fusion that it has all the elements or even more that we haven't discovered here on Earth, that would be cool.
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting thing I learned in this unit was how you can tell a stars age with a spectrum. This is so cool because each element has a certain patter and if that star has that pattern is its spectrum it contains that element. Also it is cool how each element has its own set of line to tell what it is. One question that I have is, Can there be a probability that a black hole can die out and just close up?
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting thing i have learned this unit was how black holes are formed because I did not know that they came from stars and it was really interesting reading the article because i had no idea how they could locate black holes.
ReplyDeleteMy one question is how do we know what each phase is and when it is in that phase?
I like learning about black holes and how they work. I also found learning the PV cells were interesting. Nuclear Fusion is also really cool. What is dark matter? How do scientist know that dark matter exists?
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting thing I have learned in this unit was about stars. The way that they die according to mass was very interesting. I also thought when a massive star dies it turns into a black hole.
ReplyDeleteA question I have to ask is when our sun explodes, it will obviously affect our solar system but what about anything close to us? And will any of the planets have the possibility of surviving without the sun?
The most interesting thing I have learned about in this start unit is how stars die. I did not know that the star's mass determined the type of death the star would have. I think it is so interesting that some relatively big stars have a much different death then the massive starts that explode.
ReplyDeleteI still have a question about black holes. I am confused on how we know that black holes exist and how we know that they suck everything out of them if they are so far away that we can't see any of them. I want to know how they play into our lives here on earth and what their purpose is.
The most interesting thing I learned in this unit would be learning the star life cycle. The star life cycle was interesting to me because of the ability of what a star can do. I also found it interesting how large hot stars can get and what elements they can produce in its life span. The question I still have from this unit is how a star actually begins?
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting thing I learned in this unit is that scientist's can't actually see black holes only the radiation they emit. I also found it interesting that light from faraway stars takes years to reach us, and we are seeing some stars as they looked in the early universe. One question I still have is, when a small star becomes a white dwarf, does it just fade into a white dwarf, does it explode, or something else?
ReplyDeleteA star becomes a white dwarf by losing its outer layers until just the core remains. It's not as violent as a supernova explosion -- those are some of the most energetic explosions in the Universe -- it's more like it just throws them off. To the people using early telescopes, the extended gas clouds that form from this process looked a bit like what they thought planetary formation would look like, so they called them "planetary nebulae". Even though they have nothing whatsoever to do with planets, the term stuck:
Deletehttps://www.google.com/search?q=planetary+nebula&tbm=isch
The core of the star that's left behind after this process is a white dwarf. If the white dwarf never interacts with any other star, it will just fade away, gradually losing its residual heat to the universe until it's an inert sphere of dense material.
If a white dwarf ends up in a binary system with another star, though, and if that star happens to get close enough that gravity strips off some of the outer parts of the other star and spirals them onto the white dwarf, then the white dwarf gradually gains mass from the other star. But there is an upper limit to the size of a white dwarf, one that's set by gravity and quantum physics: if the white dwarf gets bigger than that, gravity wins over the other forces holding the star up, and it will collapse and cause the outer parts to explode. The supernovae that happen in this case are a little bit different than the supernovae of a massive star at the end of its life, and they are really cool. Because they always happen at the same mass, they look basically the same everywhere in the Universe, and that kind of "standard candle" is a rare and incredibly useful tool for a physicist. A couple of years ago a group of researchers won the Nobel Prize in physics for using exploding white dwarfs in galaxies far, far away to show that the expansion of the universe is accelerating.
Three of the most interesting things I learned this unit was that black holes are near invisible, and we can only see them because of the spectrum. Another thing that was really coll was the death of a star, and how the death of a very large star can cause it to turn into a supernova. Another thing that was interesting was how an old star has a lot of heavy elements that can be found not where else. A question that I have is about a white dwarf. I heard on the science channel that there are other things called black dwarfs. Are those the same things as white dwarfs, or is it something different?
ReplyDeleteThey're the same, but older: because white dwarfs don't have an internal source of heat, and because the rest of the Universe is cold, they just keep cooling down until they eventually stop giving off light/heat. That takes a *long* time -- many, many billions of years. In fact, from the time a white dwarf is created it takes more than the current age of the Universe to cool it down to the point where it becomes a black dwarf. So no white dwarfs have cooled to that point... yet.
DeleteI enjoyed learning about the different types of stars and what happens to them when they die. I find the odd things in the universe such as the black hole very intriguing. Very little is known about these odd phenomena that cannot be seen, but can envelop entire stars. My biggest question is, what happens to matter once it enters a black hole?
ReplyDeleteIn this unit there were a lot of interesting things that we learned. But the one I found was most interesting was the the life cycle of the star. I found It really interesting how the star changes over time. And how the mass determines what will happen to the star.
ReplyDeleteI have two question about the life cycle still. First how do they get the lines to find out what is in the star? And how do they find the mass of the star?
The most interesting thing I learned this unit was how and what stars are made up of. I never really wondered about that but it was cool to see how many different ones there are. I liked being able to tell how old they were and what elements they had in them! Im still confused on how they discovered all of this? Also i would like to know how l long it took them to figure all of this out and what it was like! In general I would like more background.
ReplyDeleteHi Abigail,
DeleteThis is a really interesting "history of science" question and there's a reasonable amount of information out there. Understanding the details of stellar structure and evolution was in large part due to really detailed studies of lots of stellar spectra. As to what it was like to work on that, Wikipedia actually provides a pretty good place to start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Computers
The "Computers" in this case were *human* computers -- in particular, highly educated women who the head of the Harvard Observatory hired because they were just as good as the men but were paid a comparatively tiny wage. Because the men didn't want to get their hands dirty sorting through thousands of spectra it meant that the women made some of the key discoveries themselves. Take that, century-old sexism! :)
The most interesting thing I ended up learning in this unit was about the star life cycle and all the different stages a star goes through. It was just amazing how we can know all this stuff about stars without actually physically studying them. Stars are defiantly one of the most interesting and most undiscovered topic in science. But I am still confused about how they figure out what to look for and how they do it by just looking at pictures and data? I feel like it would be very, very confusing, but maybe it is.
ReplyDeleteI was very amazed to learn how gigantic space really is. This unit, I was blown away learning about the inside of the sun, and how fusion works. Not only that, but how much more there is to see in space than what we can observe with the naked eye. Studying black holes also made me find a new perspective, because absolutely no light can escape, so what happens to the light? I still do not understand how we are able to measure the size of a black hole, because we cannot enter any equipment inside a black hole, simply for the reason that if we did so, that equipment would be lost. Does the light, turn into darkness?
ReplyDeleteI think the most interesting thing I've learned during this unit was looking at the spectrum in lights and finding out what colors are in a specific star. The lab was pretty cool when we had to match up the lines with each other. Looking through those glasses and seeing every color coming off from a light was an interesting sight. That lab made me have a better understanding of how the spectrum works.
ReplyDeleteHow can we know for sure that what we are seeing through telescopes is actually a black hole? What if our understanding isn't actually what we think it is. What makes it absorb so many things.
A good scientist always keeps an open mind about what they think they know. So the question of "what if our understanding isn't actually what we think it is" is an excellent one, and it's one that's always in the back of a scientist's mind.
DeleteThat being said, if the Sun rises tomorrow it's probably because the Sun rose, and not because an alien spacecraft turned the Sun into a black hole while also shining a bright light at our planet that looks exactly like the Sun. Given the so-far perfect predictions that Newton's Laws provide about the rising Sun, it would take a lot to topple that theory.
So the question becomes: how much information do you need before you decide you're sure?
One of the black holes we're most sure about is the one that lives at the center of our own galaxy. This one isn't like the black holes that are made in stars: it's much, much bigger -- a few *million* Suns' worth. But it's not really giving off any light; the only reason we know how much mass it has is that we can measure the orbits of stars around it. Those stars are orbiting a huge mass that is extremely compact yet doesn't give off any signal of its own. If you work through the physics of what could possibly be there, anything you can think of would have to be so dense that it would immediately collapse into a black hole.
So that black hole is pretty certain, and there have been a couple of other, similar arguments made about stellar-mass black holes in binary systems with other stars. Beyond that, actually confirming that what you think is a black hole *is* a black hole is pretty difficult. I study "supermassive" black holes (like the ones at the center of our galaxy, or bigger, sometimes a thousand times bigger) in other galaxies. Very few of them are *confirmed* black holes, but they have really similar properties to confirmed supermassive black holes, and nobody has ever come up with a satisfactory explanation for what else they could be. If that does happen, that will be an interesting day! For now, though, given the things we observe, nearly every galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its center, and most galaxies probably have a bunch of stellar mass black holes orbiting within them, too.
The most interesting thing I have learned in this unit would have to be the star life cycle. I just thought it was really interesting learning about the different steps to become a star. I also thought it was cool how it depends on the mass of the star to determine it's outcome.
ReplyDeleteOne question I still have is what is the purpose of p-v cells? Is it to create electricity or does it have a different purpose
One thing I learned this unit that I thought was really cool, was what happens in a star and what happens ta different sized stars after the die. I always thought that all stars that died became black holes. I also didn't know that our sun was one of the smallest stars because it looks so big. I never knew before this unit that fusion happened in a star and that we wouldn't have anything higher than Iron if it wasn't for supernovas of Red Giants.
ReplyDeleteOne question I have is how do we find the mass and age of a star? You can't really see into a star or you can't go up to a star and weigh it. How do we find these things out?
1. The most interesting thing I learned was about the black holes. There were some things I read that really surprised me like how much mass they have.
ReplyDelete2. I am wondering why we can see some waves but we can’t see others. Why is that?
In terms of pure physical reasons that we can only see the "visual" part of the spectrum, it has to do with the size and structure of our eyes. In some ways our eyes are like little telescopes, and the size of telescope you need to collect data depends on the wavelength of the light. Optical light is a few hundred nanometers in wavelength, and the inner parts of our eyes are specifically built to pick that up.
DeleteIf we wanted to see at longer wavelengths, we'd need bigger eyes so the longer waves wouldn't skip right over us. To "see" radio signals, we'd need eyes meters across. That's not very practical. If we wanted to see X-rays, on the other hand, we'd need to be made of something different. X-rays have such short wavelengths that they can mess with the molecules in our DNA (not likely for a single X-ray at your doctor's, but there's a reason the doctor stands behind the huge lead panel). So just for physical reasons there's a limit to the wavelengths that eyes like ours could pick up at all.
Another part of why we evolved to have eyes like these is due to our own planet Earth. Our atmosphere is really good at filtering X-rays (thankfully) and is also pretty good at filtering ultraviolet light, which we can only just barely not see (on the shorter-wavelength side). Also good, because UV light isn't great for us in large quantities. The atmosphere isn't perfect at filtering that, which is why we get sunburned and why you will go blind if you stare directly at the Sun. (And don't go to tanning salons. Seriously, don't.) The atmosphere also blocks pretty significant parts of the infrared spectrum, which we can barely not see (but on the longer-wavelength side). There is only a small window of the electromagnetic spectrum where the atmosphere is essentially transparent -- and that's the part that our eyes see. That's not a coincidence; that's evolution.
The most "interesting" thing I learned about this unit was the periodic table. What made this interesting is that i know understand how to use it and it makes some sense. Also what makes this interesting is how the elements are organized. A question I still have is "Mrs. Marron mentioned something about humanity coming from stardust, how is that based, and how can such a complex being come from a bit of dust in the atmosphere, what caused the dust to form people or a living organism that formed into humans. If evolution is the answer, then how is it that an entire human being can form in just 9 months but evolution took millions or billions of years to get from the same thing that occurs in a pregnancy.
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting thing I learned in this unit was electromagnetic wave spectrum. It was interesting to learn how different they are and yet so very similar. I loved learning how to solve wave equations because I love math and so that was fun. I feel as though I walked away knowing a lot more about waves than everything else.
ReplyDeleteA question I was wondering were that once a star was form how does it form with other stars to become a constellation.
The most interesting thing I learned about in this unit was stars! I learned a lot of new information about them, like; not all stars explode into supernovas, their mass plays a big part in their existence, and details of the different stages. Even though I feel like I have a better understanding of stars, they still remain a mystery to me.
ReplyDeleteStars are created through fusion, but if they develop in space, where there is no gravity, oxygen, or any means of substance in the "air" how can they be created at all?
There is definitely gravity in space! That is, the laws of gravity work everywhere. Even if you were in an empty part of the galaxy, you might not feel a gravitational pull from another nearby star or planet, but you'd still be orbiting around the center of the galaxy, like our solar system does. And you along with everything else in our galaxy would still be moving toward our nearest big galaxy, the Andromeda galaxy... and so on. There is matter in this Universe, so there is gravity -- there just may not be very much of it.
DeleteSpace is also only empty compared to the Earth. There may not be enough air in space for humans to breathe, but a cloud of gas somewhere that's not initially dense enough to seem like much can eventually collapse under its own gravity to form a star.
The thing i enjoyed most about this moment was learning about stars. I think its cool how not all starts have the same life path. They all turn out different in the end, kind of like people!
ReplyDeleteI would love to get a better understanding of black holes. How do you know that they are there if they blend in and how do we know how they work if we can't get near one?
The most interesting thing that i have learned was about Black holes. Black holes are massive amounts of gravity being sucked into somewhere we haven't discovered. Black holes are formed from the most massive stars couple hundred times bigger than our sun.
ReplyDeleteThe question that i have is are black holes portals or short cuts thorugh the universe into other dimensions? Why do black holes exsist? What if we were to be sucked into a black hole, would we be demolished or thrown out into a different galaxy due to the insane amount of force. What would happen if we flew into a black hole?
In class we read an article about black holes. In this article I learned black holes cannot be seen because light cannot be released. Hence the black holes name, we can however see they are there because sometimes you can see a star being sucked into one. I also learned there are over millions (or thousands cant remember) black holes in our milky way galaxy.
ReplyDeleteA question I have for Brooke would be, what is her favorite star that she has studied?
The Sun! Nowadays I study supermassive black holes at the centers of other galaxies, but when I was a student I used to study the Sun, and it is really cool. It seems pretty boring and regular in the sky but actually it varies a bit -- there's a cycle to the Sun that we don't fully understand yet, but which we think has to do with magnetic forces. And the Sun rotates, and has these great big storms that can eject high-energy particles, which cause the aurora borealis here on Earth. Really big solar storms can even cause power outages on Earth. A little scary, but very cool.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIn class we learned so many things. we learned about stars and what they do and what they are made of. We learned how we determine what is in the stars with the
ReplyDeleteelectromagnetic spectrum. We also learned about frequency, wavelength, and amplitude and how to falculate that.
One question I have is how many galaxies are there? And past that haw may universes are there, and how do we find out about the galaxies and universes?
calculate*
DeleteThe most interesting thing i learned in this unit was how you can tell ho old the star is. It was very cool doing the lab with it too. My question for Dr. Simmons would be: How are shooting stars created and where did they come from?
ReplyDeleteIf I had to choose the most interesting thing that I learned about in this unit it would be the way the Star Life Cycle. I liked it because it provided many ideas of what is going on in the universe. The idea interests me.
ReplyDeleteWhat happens inside a black hole?
The most interesting thing I learned was the relationship between all the different properties of a wave.
ReplyDeleteWhere do things go when they enter a black hole
I have tried to write this twice and it won't save my work. The coolest thing I learned this unit is that heavier elements like gold and silver are formed in the life cycle of a star... so it if you own a gold ring, it's like owning your own little chunk of star. My questions are: How do those elements make it to earth once they are created, like do they just float round in emptiness until they hit a gravitational pull? Is there another to create gold and silver here on earth??
ReplyDeleteMuch energy was expended over the course of human history to turn other elements into gold, but nope -- it's not as simple as finding the philosopher's stone (which was called the sorcerer's stone in Harry Potter).
DeleteOwning a gold ring is like owning a piece of a star, but then you -are- a piece of a star in many ways. As Carl Sagan* said, "The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of star stuff."
The carbon and iron in the rocks that makes Earth was made in stars, too. The supernovae in the earlier years of the galaxy deposited their heavier elements into the remaining gas in the galaxy, some of which collapsed into a protostar and a gas-and-dust disk rotating around it. As the protostar became the Sun, the disk formed bigger "dust" molecules, which attracted other molecules, and on and on, until there were little pebbles, until those bigger chunks of rock stuck together to form bigger rocks, and eventually the biggest rocks (many of which were pretty much still molten at the time) became planets. Except for small amounts deposited by meteorites, the gold and silver here on Earth was here from the beginning.
*If you don't know who Carl Sagan is, it's worth looking him up. Amazing astrophysicist.
I think the most interesting think i learned this unit was neutron stars. It seem interesting how it possible to have a thing only made of neutrons. Combining a proton and electron.
ReplyDeleteMy question is what do you think is inside a black hole? I know in the hydron collider they make heavy elements but in a few nano secs it decays into a smaller element. I wonder if these particles can last inside the black hole maybe they don't decay.
I think that the most interesting thing that I have learned in this unit is the steps to the explosion to the Big Bang and the star life cycle. I think that it is important for us to know what has happened to the universe and how it was created. Some believe in God and some believe in Mary, we all have different beliefs but no matter what im pretty sure that even though people believe in those two things and others that it is still important to learn that. Hopefully the people that believe in those things, that they are still interested in learning how the universe was created and how God created us. It might be a little much to use the G word but in reality we all believe in our own things that we believe in. Even though they believe in that it is still an option and-or priority that you learn about that. I even know people that are astrophysicists and believe in God and are interested in learning about that.
ReplyDeleteHow big is the largest star? I know that may seem like a stupid question but ever since I was little I have always been interested in stars.
Hi Adrienne,
DeleteI didn't get into religious themes in my answer to Mrs. Marron's comment on the other post, but I do think you're making an important point. Science has answered a lot of questions, but many remain unanswered. I know a lot of astrophysicists who are religious, and a lot who aren't. So I definitely think it's possible to be spiritual and also be scientific.
One thing I will say, though, is that that doesn't mean all religious beliefs are equally valid in the eyes of science. Science may not yet be able to answer the question of who or what created the Universe, but it is very clear that the solar system is billions of years old. It can't yet explain human consciousness, but it has established very firmly that humans evolved over millions of years along with all the other species on the planet. It hasn't established exactly how life started on this planet, but it has shown quite conclusively that our climate is changing in ways that are going to fundamentally shift what our grandchildren call "normal", and that climate change is almost certainly due to human causes. On a personal level, I think faith is an important part of life. But if there's a thunderstorm overhead, having faith that it isn't there won't stop you from getting wet.
On the question about the biggest stars, the biggest ones that exist now are somewhere in the range of 10-50 times the mass of the Sun. But there used to be much, much bigger ones. See above for more details:
http://marronssciencemusings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/astrosphere-wrap-up.html?showComment=1384183287812#c5037982810695503700
The most interesting that I learned in this unit is that stars break the law of conservation of mass. It is really cool because instead the mass is energy and that means we are partly energy. It was also interesting learning a little a bit about E=MC2 because it made something as simple as a paper clip that you wouldn't think to have that much energy have energy. Some questions I have have to do with the diamond in the sky. I still don't understand how that a diamond and how the gravitational pull isn't making the sun fall on us or out of our atmosphere. I also think the stellar rumbles were really cool and was wondering how that would happen and what damage it wojuld cause. I thought it was interesting learning about the big bang theory just because it is so amazing that everything could have happened in a fraction of a second. I was also wondering about the sizes of stars and the heaviest and lightest gravitational pull.
ReplyDeleteHi Abbey,
DeleteLots of questions! Hopefully I've answered some of the others elsewhere, but on the "diamond in the sky": a white dwarf star is what you get when you have a stellar core that's mostly carbon, and which gravity pulls together into a structure so dense that it's basically a solid piece of carbon in a crystal-like form.
That's basically what a diamond is, although diamonds on earth aren't as dense!
Oh, also: the "diamond in the sky" is similar to, but different from the conclusion that diamonds contain a bit of star stuff -- it's not that there is literally a piece of a white dwarf in a diamond, but that other stars that did explode dispersed the carbon that would eventually become a diamond into the rest of the Universe.
DeleteThe most interesting thing i have learned this unit was about the star life cycle. I thought it was cool how we got to see a diagram that really helped us learn about it. It was interesting how in most stages gravity won over most things. For example. In a MASSive start, a nova, gravity wins and then there is enough energy to form iron.
ReplyDeleteA question i have is after the stage of a black hole, is there anything after? Or is that the last stage? Does it repeat itself again or no?
Hi Andie,
DeleteWe think that after a black hole that's basically it. :)
The most interesting thing I learned this unit is that white dwarfs are huge diamonds in space, just like the diamond on rings and jewelry. I have a question about the conservation of matter and energy. If matter and energy can't be created or destroyed, then where did matter or energy come from?
ReplyDeleteWe think that at the start of the Universe there was a nearly equal amount of matter and anti-matter. Whatever mass normal matter has, anti-matter has that in anti-mass, e.g. a proton and anti-proton have equal mass but opposite signs, if that makes sense. So that's a little like starting with zero.
DeleteExcept for two things: first, matter and anti-matter destroy each other when they come into contact, and they give off a LOT of energy when they do that. Second, there's a bit of random fluctuation in everything, and in our case there was a bit more matter than anti-matter just because, well, quantum physics. So all of the anti-matter annihilated nearly all of the matter, and it left behind a bit of matter (which is now stars and galaxies and planets and people) and a sea of energy, in the form of light. That same amount of energy has become more and more spread out as the Universe has expanded, so there's less of it per unit of area, and it's now so low-energy that the temperature of the Universe is 2.7 Kelvin, which is approximately -455 degrees Fahrenheit. Despite it being that cold, it's now been very well measured by scientists and it is some of the best evidence for the Big Bang.
The most interesting this I have learned from this unit so far is everything about the Star life cycle. I never knew how gravity effected the formation of star. I also was very intrigued when I learned that atoms are created in space, I knew they had to be created somehow , but I never quit knew the process. A question I have is, after the sun dies, what will happen to Earth? Will there be a new "sun" type planet, or will the sun just be gone?
ReplyDeleteThere will be a nebula made up of the outer layers of the former Sun, and a white dwarf at the center, slowly cooling off for the rest of eternity.
DeleteThough, before either of those things happen the Sun will expand out to about the size of our orbit, so the Earth will be burnt to a crisp. :)
1. The most interesting thing i learned was how long the star cycle was. i though that it was interesting because stars makes us but also how many elements are in a star. Also it interest me that how long the star stays in the main sequence star.
ReplyDelete2. My question is What if a star quake was near our planet, had a quake what would happen to our atmosphere or even our world?
Star quakes do happen near our planet because they happen on the Sun. But they don't transfer out through space (like Earthquakes, they need a medium to go through that's much more dense than interplanetary space), so we don't feel them. We can observe them, though.
DeleteThe most interesting thing I've learned this unit is how black holes worked. I didn't know how they worked and that they were formed by the collapse of giant stars. It was also cool to see what they do to everything they absorb. I didn't know that if a person would get sucked in, they would literally get torn apart. My question is, if we're still on Earth when the sun explodes, would we have any chance of surviving the explosion as well as the aftermath of it? Would it create a black hole or would Earth just get burned to pieces by the explosion?
ReplyDeleteThe Sun won't explode. It will slowly lose its outer layers and they will become a nebula, which we will be inside. Before that we will be either right at or just inside the surface of the Sun when it's in its red giant phase, so it will definitely be burnt up, or at least the atmosphere will burn off and all life on the planet will go extinct.
DeleteThe Sun won't become a black hole, however. It just isn't massive enough to do that.
The most interesting thing I have learned from this unit is how the elements on the periodic table are formed from fusion. I didn’t know that to get the heavier elements a ster had to explode. I also thought it was cool how the protons of hydrogen fused together (like welding) and created helium and so on until you get to iron. After iron the star has to explode to create the heavier elements. One question I have is, What would happen if gravity pulled the star together but never exploded? Is it possible that a wormhole could be created like this?
ReplyDeleteWormholes are an interesting part of science and, though one has never been seen, it's thought that their creation would involve black holes. Mostly black holes are created in stellar explosions (though not all of them are).
DeleteThe cases where stars collapse under gravity but never explode are things like white dwarfs and neutron stars, which only form when the star isn't big enough to evolve into a black hole!
The most interesting thing I learned was that white dwarf's are actually diamonds in the sky. This is cool because when you sing twinkle twinkle little star you finally know what are diamonds in the sky. Also it is cool how elements come from stars.
ReplyDeleteQuestion: When Supernova's explodes how do they know every other element gets created? What evidence is there.
This is a great question, and the answer is: spectra! We can observe the characteristic absorption and emission at specific wavelengths that only happens when certain atoms are present. We know those are the right wavelengths because we've tested them in a lab.
DeleteI thought that black holes were the most interesting thing besides E=MC2 because they have so much power, and we know the least about them. I also liked the Big Bang discussion, and I was wondering why it took so long for the first galaxies to form when atoms formed so relatively quick. Transforming matter to energy and back again is so cool, my pencil could probably power my laptop for a while…
ReplyDeleteI still wonder that if two identical stars in a binary system turned to black holes at the same time, what would happen? Would they cancel each other out, merge, or what?
They'd merge -- and that would be really cool and it probably does happen, but it's very hard to see if they're both black holes and not radiating!
DeleteThe reason they'd merge is that their orbits cause a rippling of spacetime itself, and this rippling is a form of energy that is then radiated away (but not as light, as "gravitational waves"), so the system loses energy and spirals together until there's a merger.
Nobody has ever directly detected gravitational waves, but it may happen within the next 5 years or so, and the first people to do it will almost certainly (eventually) get the Nobel Prize, among many other prizes. Gravitational waves would be an entirely new way to see the Universe.
1. The most interesting thing I learned about in this unit was the life cycle of a star. I found this interesting because I did not know much about the life cycle of stars and the many types of star each stars transforms into during its life. Also, the many different elements that are in stars/are used to make stars is also interesting.
ReplyDelete2. Is it possible for Enigmatic Explosions' shock wave to come close to Earth, and could the shock wave cause any damage/destroy or not affect Earth?
If a supernova or something similar went off near to Earth we could definitely feel its effects. One of my friends studies Gamma-ray Bursts and keeps getting interviewed about what would happen if the enormous energy from a nearby one ever hit our planet. In short, it would be Very Very Bad (like, strip off the atmosphere or possibly kill everyone with radiation Bad), but it's also highly unlikely because they're very rare and not much in our neighborhood is a candidate for one. Phew.
DeleteI think the most interesting thing we have learned in this unit is how elements were made in stars. Before this class had never heard that, so when we learned that it was so cool! Also it just made so much sense that the elements at the top of the periodic table were formed before the heavier elements at the bottom of the table.
ReplyDeleteIn the star mysteries I learned that a solar flare it would release enough energy to power the US for up to 100,000 years. It also said they are trying to learn how to predict these to catch them. Even if they learn how to predict these how will they be able to catch them and turn them into energy we can use?
It would take a lot of preparation and investment to design and build equipment that could use them to charge batteries or something similar. So it's a long way off. For now predicting them would at least give us enough warning so that if a huge one were on its way we might be able to turn everything off and sheld our sensitive electronics from their harmful effects.
DeleteThe most interesting thing that we have learned in this unit is how elements were created. I have always known about the elements and the chemical make up of them but it was very interesting to learn that they all came from stars. It is shocking to know that the process of fusion is how all elements and then life from those elements are created. One thing that I am still curious about has to do with the big bang. I would like to know more about the red shift and it would be helpful to get a more detailed explanation than how it is just evidence that the universe is expanding.
ReplyDeleteThere are many, many tutorials about redshift out there -- but basically, it's the same phenomenon that makes a fire engine's siren seem like it's higher pitched when it's coming toward you and lower pitched when it's moving away.
DeleteActually, here's a video that explains it really well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TllmPQL3ZYQ
This video is of Oxford student Becky Smethurst, and it was taken as part of a science communication competition called FameLab. Each of the contestants has just a few minutes to explain a scientific concept, and Becky chose redshift. And astronomy!
I learned about the different stages such as red giant and and supernova a star has to take. I didn’t know that hydrogen and helium were the first elements in the universe. I also didn’t know about the spectrum of light. One question I still have is how can we tell the order of the stars. Between red giant, etc.
ReplyDeleteThat is an excellent question, and about a century ago making sense of the different kinds of stars seen in the galaxy was one of the biggest unanswered questions in astrophysics. It was one of the major discoveries that came out of the effort I described here:
Deletehttp://marronssciencemusings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/astrosphere-wrap-up.html?showComment=1384214530676#c2089792578754673269
It was really hard work making sense of everything, and it was only made possible once all the stellar light for many, many stars were broken down into their component wavelengths, i.e., into spectra.
The most interesting thing that I have learned in this unit is about how the stars in our universe kinda create daily things that we use. The stars have made so many things when being created that most people in our daily lives don't know about. We as people are created by stars and its amazing to see that our universe and everything in it came from nothing.
ReplyDeleteMy question is would it be possible to get close to a black hole? Would we be able to get close enough to learn about them and learn new things about these black holes?
We have discovered a lot about them just from where we are! I study black holes and I'm pretty glad we can learn so much without having to get close. At the moment we don't really have the technology to get that close, but it would be great if we could.
DeleteThe most interesting thing I've learned in this unit is the how much goes into and comes out of the life cycle of a star. The specific order makes all the elements in such a detailed way. It's cool how intricate it is and how basically everything is made from stars.
ReplyDeleteOne question I still have is what was there before the big bang? Where did the first explosion come from and how did it just happen out of nowhere?
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ReplyDeleteMy favorite mystery is Grim Reapers because black holes are really interesting to me. I think it's cool that they have such a strong gravitational field that they can pull anything close enough to them into a deep deep hole. I am wondering how scientists are able to measure the depths of the black holes and how long it takes for the collapsed massive star to form the black hole?
ReplyDeleteStellar evolution is sort of like rolling a ball down a gentle slope with a slightly steeper slope after that, and then a huge cliff. The main part of stellar evolution takes many, many millions of years even for the massive stars that become a black hole. Then, after a star becomes a giant, evolution is a bit faster, until the tipping point. Once that's reached, the collapse is very fast -- after that point the core of a star becomes a black hole in a matter of seconds.
DeleteThe most interesting mystery was the grim reapers because they seem most dramatic, and black holes interest me. A question I have is: do you think in the future a second Big Bang could ever happen?
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting thing that I learned this unit was how elements were made. I found it very fascinating how stars and fusions make elements. So the more fusions and the more elements are combined into one, the heavier the element.
ReplyDeleteMy question is why haven't any supernova's happened in our galaxy since 1604, and if one were to happen how would it affect earth and our entire galaxy?
I think the most interesting that I have learned in this unit was the life cycle of different stars. Like how the core of a white dwarf is crystallized carbon. Or that when a star dies, gravity wins over it exploding the star into space. The question I have is very complicated so I hope it can be understood. Our sun is one of trillions in the universe and it has 8 planets, which makes me wonder how many other stars have planets orbiting around them and is their a possibility that their could be another earth-like planet? With water, a magnetic field, life?
ReplyDeleteThis is a very good question and several of my colleagues are working on it. The further we progress technologically in our abilities to detect planets, the more planets we detect. We currently know of thousands in our galaxy, and we've only looked at a very, very small part of the Milky Way. There are a lot of people doing some really great statistics and trying to calculate how many planets there probably are in our own galaxy, and so far the figures are that there are roughly as many planets as there are stars (some stars, like ours, have many planets; others probably don't have any). That's a lot of planets. We still don't know how many there are that are earth-mass, or in the same "Goldilocks zone" where liquid water can exist, or might have magnetic fields. But this part of astrophysics is a rapidly growing and changing field, so check back this time next year and I bet there will be a lot more information!
DeleteThe most interesting thing that we learned about this unit to me was that stars created the entire universe. To me it is ineradicable that a star created me. Out of the simplest element a star was able to build up and create every thing. I understand that astronomers use telescopes to find things out about the universe. Though, this makes me wonder how they are able to figure out what they know just from a little picture?
ReplyDeleteWhat I love about this Unit, (what I learned) was that most stars are mad up of diamonds! I also thought it was cool, that we know now that universe is expanding, and is still expanding.
ReplyDeleteWhat I liked about the mysteries was that when something goes into "Grim Reapers", it turns into different energy. I liked the "Grim Reapers" mystery the most because its unbelievable. My question is how do they know something never comes back once it goes in a black hole?
I thought it was very interesting in how the Hydrogen fused and became helium, and so on. I also thought that supernovas were very cool. Supernovas explode, and make heavy elements which is very intriguing. My question is that if there is nothing to start with in the big bang, and then there are magically clouds of hydrogen to make the stars, how does that follow the Law of Conservation of Mass. I am just confused in how there is nothing, then something.
ReplyDeleteHannah, my understanding is that it wasn't that there was nothing per se, but that the matter was all stored as energy at a single point. When it expanded, some of that energy transformed into matter.
DeleteHow that energy got there to start, though, I think is a bit up in the air. Maybe check out Dr. Simmons' response on "Questions for an Astrophysicist" blog for more information.
The most interesting thing we have learned in this unit is the life cycle of a star. Before this unit I didn't know the stages a star has to go through depending on its size. Also that all the elements come from stars. One thing I would like to know more about is the Big Bang, and the redshift. To give more details and evidence that the universe is indeed expanding.
ReplyDeleteArielle, for a little more information about how we can use and measure the redshift, check out this article: http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2013/08/13/3824492.htm
DeleteHere's a great link for explaining "redshift" in more detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhfnqboacV0
What interested me the most about this unit is how elements were created. I've always wanted to know where the periodic table came from and how scientists know this stuff. I also thought that the fact that diamonds came from stars was really cool!! My question is Is there a possibility that the sun will explode one day?
ReplyDeleteNope! Not like more massive stars do, anyway. The Sun isn't big enough to explode as a supernova.
DeleteThere are solar flares and other electromagnetic events that happen on the Sun that are very energetic, though, and those are sometimes described as "explosions." But those are very, very different than supernovae!
I was most interested in the supernovas. I thought it was really neat to learn about what happens when a star explodes. I'm glad I now understand how elements are made. I know the universe expands over the years, so how far does it go? Will it ever stop?
ReplyDeleteAs far as we can tell, the Universe will never stop expanding. It didn't have to be that way, but that's just how it turned out because of the ratio of different kinds of matter and energy in the Universe. The expansion will continue and will actually accelerate. Eventually all the stars will go out and all the black holes will evaporate and the Universe will be a sea of nothingness. Fun.
DeleteThe most interesting thing I learned this unit was the size of the stars. I also thought that the power and energy that stars have inside of them was very interesting to me also.
ReplyDeleteHow long was the ball of energy come together to be so dense?
It depends a bit on the details of the molecular cloud that's forming stars, but generally it's many millions of years.
DeleteThe most interesting thing that I have learned this unit is how the universe was created. The Big Bang created the universe, it created space, time, and matter. The Big Bang is the most interesting thing that I have learned this unit because it explains how everything came into existence.
ReplyDeleteOne question I still have is about black holes. If something happens after a black hole, then what happens?
The most Interesting thing I have learned is that all of our elements come from the stars. This is at the top of my list because that of the fact that somehow the elements the stars create come to earth and form anything and everything.
ReplyDeleteMy question is, do black holes break the law of conservation of matter? Do they just change it to energy like stars but on a much larger scale?
Katie, that is my understanding - that they emit some of the matter as x-rays and other high-frequency radiation. I think that is still being explored, though.
DeleteHow long ago was it when we found out about black holes? More than 100 years?
ReplyDeleteThe concept of a black hole has actually been around since the 18th century! But the first one was discovered in the 20th century, I believe.
DeleteThe most interesting thing I have learned so far in this unit is that all of the elements on the periodic table came from stars.This happens because of the fusion inside of the stars. When gravity and heat fuse elements together to create bigger ones. Also the heaver elements are in the core of a star. Oone question I still have is why do Black Holes suck up all of the light? Is it because of the amount of gravity or the darkness?
ReplyDeleteEthan, according to Einstein's laws of relativity, gravity actually spends space and time, so light bends as well. In a black hole, it bends so much that even light cannot escape. Check out this link for more information: http://hubblesite.org/explore_astronomy/black_holes/encyc_mod3_q11.html
DeleteWhat was before the big bang? Like before everything that made us and the Earth?
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I found interesting is that gravity is so strong that elements can fuse together. Here on earth in our life time we will never experience this type of pressure. Also why are we not at mars yet
ReplyDeleteWe are! Sort of. Not people, sure (that's more politics than science, I think), but Mars is the only known planet inhabited solely by robots. :)
DeleteSome things that I learned were that some of the stars in the galaxy have have multi-star systems. This is interesting because I never knew that. A question I had was how do stars have "quakes"? If they do not have distinctive surfaces, how can their "surface" crack?
ReplyDeleteIt's slightly more analogous to ripples on a pond -- though actually the land surface of the earth ripples like that too during an earthquake (and sometimes things crack during that process).
DeleteOne thing that I learned was how important gravity is to life, and one question I have is what will happen when the universe runs out of use able energy?
ReplyDeleteErik, here's one theory that describes the idea that energy will be evenly spread (aka heat death). Don't stress yet though - we are looking at over a googl of years!
Deletehttp://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2013/12/heat_death_the_ultimate_fate_of_our_universe.html
The most interesting thing I learned in this unit was that everything including us is made up of stars. When the big bang happened matter went everywhere and made up of everything. This is the most interesting thing I've learned because it brings something so big closer to home.
ReplyDeleteWhat is our universe expanding into?
Most of our universe is empty space, but "space" is still a thing. In terms of Einstein, it's a real, flexible thing that follows specific laws of physics. That is what is expanding - the actual space.
DeleteSomething that I have found that is interesting in this unit is how the elements came from stars. I think that is interesting because I never knew that. I also thinks its interesting that if the star is older the more elements it has. A question I have is whats going on in black holes?
ReplyDeleteSomething I found interesting was how our universe came from nothing. How there wasn't an atom or a gas or anything. The fascinating part is how it exploded so fast out of nothing and in a second appeared. I still have a question though. How did our universe come from absolutely nothing. How would it even be possible for an explosion to come out of nohing.
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting thing I learned in the unit was how stars are formed and their life cycle. Many of the stars we see may already have gone through their life cycle, but the universe is so spread out over billions of light years we can look into the past and find out how these dead stars were formed. Stars take billions of years to form and only require 2 forces; fusion and gravity.
ReplyDelete2. My question is; If the sun and other stars can create fusion, why can't we create it here on Earth? How much energy can we produce using fusion on Earth? Would it be worth it to invest money and try?