FORMATION OF
ELEMENTS FOUND IN
THE UNIVERSE
What are the classification of
Celestial Bodies?
Elements and the Big Bang Theory
During the formation of the universe some 14 billion years
ago in the so-called ‘Big Bang’, only the lightest elements were
formed – hydrogen and helium along with trace amounts of
lithium and beryllium
As the cloud of cosmic dust and gases from the Big Bang
cooled, stars formed, and these then grouped together to form
galaxies.
Moments after the Big Bang, energy
begins to condense into matter,
protons and neutrons are formed, and
then the first element (hydrogen) is
formed. Hundreds of millions of years
later in stellar nebulae, the hydrogen
gas clouds coalesce and, under gravity,
form protostars. Nuclear
fusion processes begin converting
Stellar Nebula hydrogen into helium.
An average or medium star
is less than 3 times the mass of
the Sun. Stars are powered by
nuclear fusion in their cores,
mostly converting hydrogen into
helium and liberating
Average Star tremendous amounts of energy.
Massive stars, more than 3 times the
mass of the Sun, mostly convert
hydrogen into helium. Rigel is the
brightest star in the constellation called
Orion and one of the brightest stars in
the sky. It is a blue (very hot)
supergiant, over 100 times bigger than
Massive Star the Sun.
As medium sized stars exhaust
their hydrogen content, they expand
up to 100 times their original size to
become red giants. The nuclear
fusion reactions occurring within a
red giant are H→ He and He→ C.
Our Sun will follow this path over the
next 5 billion years. This red giant is
Aldebaran in the constellation
Red Giant
Taurus.
Super giants are the element factories
of our universe. The nuclear fusion
reactions occurring are H→ He, He→
C, C→ Ne, Ne→ O, O→ Si and Si→
Fe.
Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion
is a super red giant. It is about 20
times as massive as the Sun.
Super Red Giant
A planetary nebula is a huge shell of
gas and dust ejected during the last stage
(red giant) of the life of a medium star.
Elements such as helium, carbon, oxygen,
nitrogen, neon and smaller amounts of
heavier elements are present. Planetary
nebulae play an important part in the
chemical evolution of the galaxy, allowing
Planetary Nebula these elements to be returned to the
interstellar medium.
The supernova is the final stage in
the life of massive stars. The outer
region of the star collapses and it
Instantly rebounds off the inner core in a
cataclysmic explosion. The extremely
high level of energy allows further fusion
Supernova reactions to occur, producing heavy
elements like gold, silver and uranium.
During a supernova, the star releases very large amounts
of energy as well as neutrons, which allows elements heavier
than iron, such as uranium and gold, to be produced. In the
supernova explosion, all of these elements are expelled out
into space.
A white dwarf is a small, very dense,
hot star that is made mostly of carbon.
These faint stars are what remain after
a red giant star loses its outer layers.
They are about the size of the Earth and
will eventually lose their heat to become
White Dwarf a cold, dark black dwarf. The sun will
eventually turn into a white dwarf and
then a black dwarf.
Stars with a mass between 1.5
and 3 times the mass of the sun will
end up as neutron stars. A neutron
star is a very small, super-dense star
that is composed mostly of tightly
packed neutrons. A rapidly spinning
Neutron Star
neutron star is known as a pulsar.
Black holes are all that remain after
stars with masses over 3 times that of the
sun supernova. A black hole is a massive
object (or region) in space that is so
dense that, within a certain radius (the
Schwarzschild radius determines the
event horizon), its gravitational field does
Black Hole not let anything escape from it – not even
light.
Direction:
Place the images in the correct order from the birth of a star to
its death. Briefly describe what stage in the life cycle of a star
is represented in each image.
