Universe Mass composition
Life cycle of a star
“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in out teeth, the iron in our
blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interior of
collapsing stars. We are made of star stuff”
- Carl Sagan
IMPORTANT TERMS
Protostar – An early stage in the formation of a star resulting from the
gravitational collapse of gases
Thermonuclear fusion – a nuclear fusion responsible for the energy
produced by stars
Main sequence stars – Stars that fuse hydrogen atoms to form helium
atoms in the cores; outward pressure resulting from nuclear fusion is
balanced by gravitational forces
Light years - the distance light can travel in a year; a unit of length used
to measure astronomical distance
Dark Energy – a source of anti-gravity; a force that counteracts gravity
and causes the universe to expand
Dark matter – matter that has gravity but does not emit light
Milky way - is the galaxy that includes our Solar System
Galaxy – is a cluster of billions of stars and clusters of galaxies form
super clusters
Andromeda - great spiral galaxy in the constellation Andromeda, the
nearest large galaxy.
Baryonic matter or “ordinary matter”
- (Subatomic Particle) consisting of protons, electrons, and
neutrons that comprises atoms, planets, stars, galaxies and
other bodies
Big bang theory
– everything in out universe was compressed into one tiny
dot
- it expanded from its initial state
The creation
- the narrative from Genesis, one of the books of the Hebrew
Bible and Christian Old Testament.
- Describe how God separated light from darkness, created
the sky, land, sea, moons, stars, and every living creature in a span of six
days
Ancient Egyptians
- believed in many gods and myths which narrate that the
world arose from an infinite sea at the first rising of the sun
Kuba - the Kuba people of central Africa tell the story of a creator
god Mbombo or Bumba who, alone in a dark and water-covered earth,
felt an intense stomach pain and then vomited the stars, sun and moon
India - there is a narrative that gods sacrificed Purusha, the
primeval man whose head, feet, eyes, and mind became the sky, earth,
sun and moon perspectively
Rigveda
- A hindu text, describe the universe as an oscillating
universe in which a “cosmic egg” or Brahmanda, containing the
whole universe including the sun, moon, planets and space,
expands out of a single concentrated point called Bindu, and will
eventually collapse again
The Nebula Theory
- is an explanation for the formation of the solar systems
- The first version of the nebular hypothesis was proposed in 1755
by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant and modified in 1796 by
Pierre Laplace
- The word “nebula” is Latin for “cloud” and according to the
explanation, stars are born from clouds of interstellar gas and dust.
- The transition from an undifferentiated cloud to a star system
complete with planets and moons takes about 100 million years
STEPS
- A nebula begins to contract and collapse.
- the attraction between materials in a nebula increases.
- The center of the nebula becomes very dense and heats up.
Overtime the remaining gas and dust begins to rotate around this center
- particles grow in size and become planetesimals. Gravity attracts more
gas and dust and the solar nebula flattens out into a vast rotating disk.
- Accretion between planetesimals continues and planets continue to
orbit the center of the nebula