Giant Stars, Supernovas And The Creation Of Our Solar System

Since our time on earth began, humans have gazed up at the night sky, for a long time, the bright shining stars remained a mystery to us. But with the introduction and advancement in science, humans have made incredible strides in space exploration. We now have an understanding about giant stars, supernovas and even the creation of our solar system.

Come Explore How Stars Are Created

In the vastness of space, amazing cosmic wonders called Nebulas reside. They are made-up of enormous thick clouds of dust and gas. Often spanning light-years in diameter.

It is here, that the creation of new Stars occurs. A mind-blowing process which takes hundreds of thousands of years.

Along with time, two other very important ingredients required for the creation of a star are – Hydrogen and Gravity.

Gravity kick-starts the process by pulling the thick dust and gas together to form a giant spinning vortex.

This dust and gas are then compressed with incredible force causing a massive amount of heat to generate. Finally, after hundreds of thousands of years, a dense hot ball has now formed at the centre of the vortex.

The next phase involves an unimaginable amount of pressure, it is this pressure that finally causes massive jets of gas to explode outwards from the centre of the giant vortex.

These jets can measure light years in length and are extremely violent.

Over the next 500 thousand years or so, the young star gets smaller, brighter and hotter. Amazingly, its core temperature has now reached 15 million degrees Celsius.

The temperature is now high enough to begin fusing atoms of gas together, which in turn releases massive amounts of energy.

And finally, a star has been born.

Just How Do Stars Exist After Creation

The existence of stars is made possible by two of the most powerful forces in our Universe, Gravity and Nuclear Fusion. Locked in a titanic battle, they fight against one another for the duration of a star’s life.

Trillions of hydrogen atoms travel around the core of stars at 1000 miles per second, collisions occur between these atoms causing them to fuse together.

This fusion creates helium as well as a small amount of pure energy.

This energy wants to escape from the core of these stars but the incredible size of them simply will not allow that to happen. Gravity pushes the outer layers of the star inwards, in doing so, gravity prevents a massive explosion of energy.

The ferocious battle between the two forces actually stabilises the star and is the reason why it can exist.

Amazingly, it can take thousands of years for this energy to breakthrough the outer layers of a star. When it eventually reaches the surface, it becomes the light we see and the heat we feel.

So, What Is The Eventual Fate Of Our Sun?

Eventually stars run out of hydrogen which is used to fuel its energy. The suns core burns through 600 million tonnes of hydrogen fuel every second. Fusion will slow down, which means gravity will begin to win their epic battle and trigger a chain of events that will destroy the Sun.

Gravity will push in on the suns core but fusion will fight back once again. It will heat the outer layers of the sun causing it to expand. Our sun will become a red giant. When the hydrogen has completely run out, the suns core will start burning helium which will fuse into carbon.

When this happens, the sun will begin to destroy itself from the inside out. It will blast violent energy from its core to the surface. This violent energy will blow away the outer layers of the sun, until all that remains is a hot dense core – The sun will become a white dwarf star, about the size of earth.

Betelgeuse – Cosmic Giant Star Destined For Supernova

There is a giant star called Betelgeuse located less than 600 light years from earth. It is estimated to be around 8 million years old and is currently experiencing the latter stages of its life.

It is a red supergiant, 15 – 20 times the mass of our sun. The incredible mass of Betelgeuse produces gravity so powerful, that it smashes together bigger and bigger atoms, its core creates heavier and heavier elements. In doing so, it is leading to its own destruction.

At some stage Betelgeuse will create the element Iron, and when it does, it is doomed. Iron is detrimental to a star as it absorbs energy. Upon creating iron, Betelgeuse has only seconds to live. Energy and iron cannot fuse, meaning the force of gravity will push in on its core.

Betelgeuse’s iron core will collapse under the immense pressure, its outer layers will cave in causing a huge explosion or in other words a supernova.

In just a few seconds a supernova will generate more energy than our sun ever will in its entire lifetime.

Many elements are formed during a supernova, elements like gold, silver and platinum. All that will remain is a small dense core otherwise known as a neutron star.

Stardust, produced by the supernova will blast out into space. This dust contains elements such as iron, oxygen, carbon, hydrogen and silicon.

These elements are fundamental to the creation of new stars, new solar systems, new planets and even to the creation of us, as without these precious elements contained within this Stardust, life would not be possible.

The Creation Of A Solar System

So, we’ve learned that once a supernova occurs its spreads a colossal amount of stardust out into the abyss. It is this stardust that forms nebulas.

The process of star and planet creation can only take place inside a nebula. The formation of a star takes centre stage inside a giant swirling vortex. The planets are created using the excess dust and gas, left over from the star. Eventually, any planets that may form will orbit the new star and be part of a newly formed solar system.

Again, this process takes hundreds of thousands of years but the birth of a solar system truly is the beginning of an incredible journey which lasts billions of years.

The Birth Of Planet Earth

At the centre of a giant swirling vortex, our young sun has begun to form into a hot ball of gas. Surrounding it, is a dense cloud of dust and gas. This would eventually become our Solar System.

Earth began its journey into existence as tiny dust particles. These particles were too small, even for gravity to begin forming it into the planet it is today.

In order for Earth to form, the tiny dust particles needed to ‘clump’ together, an amazing process called electrostatic force began doing exactly that.

Lightning bolts generated inside the giant vortex, began striking these dust clumps, heating them to over 1600 degrees Celsius. As they cooled, they fused into solid rock.

Billions of these rocks collided with each other, sticking together and eventually growing into asteroids. When the asteroids grew big enough, a few kilometres in diameter, gravity began to play its part.

The asteroids were now big enough for the force of gravity to attract other asteroids that were within close proximity. Violent collisions occurred, generating extreme heat causing the rock to stick together.

The giant pile of rubble grew bigger and bigger. The process of planet creation had sped up at an incredible rate. Soon the giant pile of rock had begun to resemble a small planet.

How did Earth take a spherical shape?

When you picture in your mind a giant pile of asteroid rock, you don’t associate a nice spherical shape. Instead, you imagine a bumpy surface along with deep crevices.

So why does Earth appear nice and round?

It seems the force of gravity is essential when it comes to the creation of the many wonders in our Universe. It plays a pivotal role, and its no different in the case of creating spherical planets.

The incredible mass of a newly formed planet brings with it a huge force of gravity. This gravity constantly pushes down on the planets surface. Gigantic mountain like structures created by the collisions of asteroids, get crushed under the incredible force of this gravity. This mountain rock is reduced to rubble, levelling out the surface of the planet.

The Formation Of Earth’s Iron Core

Billions of cosmic rocks rained down on earth like ‘guided missiles. The energy produced by the impact of these strikes was absorbed by the earth, which in turn generated incredible heat. With so many collisions occurring, Earth’s surface became an ocean of molten rock. This molten rock eventually formed as the earth’s crust.

Iron that was present in the rock melted into liquid form, since iron is heavier than rock, it sank all the way to the earth’s core.

This molten iron core turned out to play a pivotal role, it creates a magnetic field around earth as it spins. This acts like a cosmic shield, it protects earth from deadly solar radiation.

By now the Solar System is about 100 thousand years old. And it is about to enter possibly, its most violent phase which will last for over 30 million years. It is made up of thousands of micro planets which collide with one another with monstrous force. The bigger planets consume the smaller ones, growing and growing until finally, only 5 planets remain. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and Theia.

Sometime later Earth would survive its last major collision when Theia and Earth found themselves on a collision course. The outcome resulted in the remains of Theia forming our Moon.

When And How Did Earth’s Oceans Form?

Our sun is now 500 million years old. Our moon has just formed and Earth is like a giant desert.

The nearest water is in the form ice, located millions of miles away from the inner solar system. Billions of comets and asteroids covered in ice reside in the outer solar system.

Luckily for earth, a major event unfolds involving the 4 gas planets – Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus. These gas giants hadn’t yet settled into a stable orbit. They began to display erratic behaviour, particularly Jupiter and Saturn. Their movement as well as their gravitational influence led to billions of ice comets and asteroids bombarding the inner solar system. This bombardment lasted hundreds of millions of years. Every square inch of earth was hit.

Finally, the gas giants settled into the orbits we see today and the solar system saw order restored.

As it turned out, just enough ice made its way to earth during this incredible bombardment, it was enough to form the earth’s Oceans.

And so, the final phase necessary in order for Earth to become habitable had unfolded.