Posted on 02/15/2007 5:11:32 PM PST by Robert A Cook PE
I wuz
Born in the Big Bang, I wuz
Born in the Big Bang
Why do the eggheads believe that the creation event (the Bang if you prefer) did not produce heavy elements as well as light?
No, as you indicate, each atomic nuclei was formed in "a" supernova (according to current theory) but many x 10 ^many were formed in each of the ten layers of the many x 10^many superstars that were reacting to fuse elements up to iron56. Each layer is deeper, at higher pressure and temperature, and creates heavier elements from fusion in turn. Before the supernova, H -> deuterium, tritium and He layer is at the outside, and Fe at the inside.
Then, each/some/many/most/all of these manyx10^many superstars went supernova at nearly the same time to produce the elements past Fe56 in the "compression zone" of outgoing fused elements: again, the same supernova can create many tens of trillions of element nuclei: but, if the resulting explosion is symmetric, then only the few elements that are headed in the right direction get to our (eventual) planet.
The closer the supernova's are together, the greater their angle of incidence, and the more likely their expelled residue will get to our planet. The faster the first generation of stars condenses, compresses, and goes through its fusion cycle, the closer it will be to us - if the universe is expanding as theorized.
But, I've never seen a justification (calculation/prediction/article) explaining either "why" the first stars are different than today's (billions times more massive ? Why?) or reacted faster than today's stars: going through in tens of years what now takes thousands or millions of years.
The first stars may have existed in an environment so rich in stellar fuel that a temporary abundance in one area would trigger star formation, which would grow so quickly, and go supernova so quickly, that hardly had it blown its gaseous shell away before several other stars were compressed out of its explosion.
Thus one supernova would trigger others in a continuous cycle like a forest fire.
This compression zone you speak of could have started at the surface of the supernova, with some heavier elements fusing as they were expelled outwards. But more likely the real fusing was going on as the pressure increased downward.
But as more and more shells of gas were blown off, those newly fused elements would be blown off with them, creating yet more pressure behind them, for more new elements to be formed, and then blown off in their turn.
A supernova is a process. It may happen quickly in stellar terms, but there is sufficient time for a great quantity of material to be forged, and expelled in all directions.
Speaking of all directions -- the elements did not make a beeline for this location so we could come into existence here. Rather, our here came into existence where the materials collected.
Good point.
Your theory too would seem to present yet another question in creation.
Another opportunity to try and figure out God.
Yours is one of those posts that make FR so freaking valuable and entertaining.
It isn't concerned with politics. But it is concerned with something important (I think) -- and something I don't know a damn thing about.
But, in reading it, I learned something.
Thanks for the post.
bio? Where? As to the formation of the earth-moon system, do you prefer to stay with the failed I-S nonsense, or learn how RC/RC happened, and thus made this a LIFE planet? Are you still young enough to make an intellectual quantum leap?
I got a 1450 but I don't reckon that makes me more clever than anyone who scored worse or less clever than anyone who scored better.
That you would even bring it up is telling. I don't know anyone over age 18 who flaunts their SAT score like the size of their phallus.
I thought Sol was a third generation star. ............ FRegards
Robert, what effect would Sol being a third generation star have.
I really didn't wan't to think this hard tonight, old friend ......... FRegards
A single particle in our tiny sun can experience about 4x1019 collisions in only a million years, based on a mean free path calculation.
There are about 1056 atoms in the sun. In a million years, our sun, by itself, can produce about 4x1075 collisions.
In one estimate, the stars in our galaxy contain about 1068 atoms. So if you allow for the same rate of collisions that our sun can produce, that gives about 4x1087 collisions for our galaxy as a whole in a million years.
If the universe is made of 400 billion galaxies, that gives about 1099 collisions without even taking into count the affects of a supernovae.
Now it's true that every collision won't result in fusion. But even if it's only one out of 1010, there are still 1089 collisions remaining without even considering supernovae.
This is enough collisions to replace all the atoms in the known universe (about 1080) with heavy nuclei in a million years assuming nothing more than stars like our sun.
This problem is really more complicated than this and I doubt I could come up with a good answer even in multiple sittings, but I thought I'd throw this out there.
To see a "bio" in FR, if the person has written one - any many/most do not - rt-click on their name under one of their posts.
I-S = ? Don't recognize that abbreviation.
You indicated that our galaxy has around 10^68 atoms.
We should question that: because the "rocky mass" in our little solar system, not counting any H or He, and not counting items out in the Oort cloud we can't find, has 10^50 heavy nuclei, and each of those represents only the material we know about that has undergone anywhere from 3 through 20 different fusion events. To fuse two carbon nuclei, for example, only takes one fusion event. One super high-energy collision as you pointed out. But, to get those two carbon nuclei in the right place to collide with other at the right temperature and pressure requires a whole series of previous collisions of exactly the right energy, direction, and pressure in the right star.
Thus, perhaps our "number of nuclei" count should be "number of fusions" represented BY the number of heavy elements we can measure.
If two carbon nuclei fuse in those 99/100 (995/1000 ?) stars too small to continue burning into a supernova, we don't care. As far as earth's core cares, they never existed.
I've got it!
Breeder reactors. Yep, breeder reactors. That's where the heavy elements came from.
Whew! Had me worried for a while there. I'm glad I figured it out.
Good Night!
I-S is my shorthand for Impact-Splash, the latest in failed earth-moon theories. Loudly touted as GOD'S TRUTH...it fails on statistical and geochemistry grounds. Typical pharisee stuff, in denial of simple facts...
I'll be damned if I can find the thread, but I do remember the passage I quoted at the time. Here it is again.
From Chemical Evolution by Stephen F. Mason, p. 47:
Calculations of the relative rates of production of the heavy long-lived radioisotopes provide estimates of the length of time needed to attain the immediate presolar abundance ratios 4.8 billion years ago. The calculated production ratios for 232Th/238U and for 238U/235U of 1.80 and 1.42, respectively (Fowler 1978), or of 1.39 and 1.24, respectively (Thielemann et al. 1983), indicate that heavy-element production began in the Galaxy between 12 and 18 billion years ago. These values are wholly independent of other estimates for the age of the universe, based on the relation between the spectral red-shift and the distance of the remote external galaxies, or on the ages of the oldest stars, although the separate estimates are in remarkable agreement (Fowler 1984). The uncertainties of the nuclear cosmochronology estimates are mainly those of the heavy radioisotope production rates, the magnitude of the immediate presolar supernova nucleosynthesis, and the time interval between that event and the condensation of closed solid systems in the solar nebula. The uncertainties of the Hubble red-shift estimates are principally those of the constancy, or the increase or the decrease, of the recession rate of the distant external galaxies.
Those time calculations assume only standard nuclear physics (which dictates, within bounds, the heavy isotope abundances produced by supernovae) and a rate of one supernova per galaxy every 30 years (observed in distant galaxy surveys).
The reason you don't see all the supernova remnants is that they expand and cool to invisibility, get distorted unrecognizably by tidal forces and the interstellar medium, and (when they encounter denser regions of the galaxy) coalesce into stars and planets.
Except under special circumstances, supernova remnants aren't easily recognizable as such for more than a few thousand years. You wouldn't expect to see more than a couple hundred of them in our galaxy, and that is what we see.
Nuclear cosmochronology is practically an industry unto itself. It's easy to find discussions about it, even on the web.
Because the universe was far denser than it is today.
or reacted faster than today's stars: going through in tens of years what now takes thousands or millions of years.
That follows directly from the larger stellar mass.
Suggested Google search term: "Population III"
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