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It takes two dead stars to make gold? In episode 43, we talked about how our universe makes the chemical elements that our world and we are made of through processes like nuclear fusion, and exploding stars. That may not be enough. Elements like platinum gold and uranium might come from the collision of two …
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What stars are made of In order to find out what a star is made of, pass its light through a prism, and examine the resulting rainbow, or spectrum. Here’s an article that includes an app that will let you play with the effect of different chemicals on a spectrum. Absorption/emission lines And here’s the …
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Pop go the stars For our universe to produce minds, we require many different chemical elements. Those elements were created by the stars. The lighter elements fuse together and provide the energy for stars to shine, and to keep from collapsing under their own gravity. Heavier elements, anything heavier than iron, require the stars to …
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It’s bigger than we thought In 1923 Edwin Hubble used a variable star to prove that the Andromeda Nebula was actually the Andromeda Galaxy. Before his measurements, it was widely believed that our galaxy, the Milky Way, was the only island of stars in the universe. Boy, did we get it wrong! Have a look …
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A matter of perspective How do we know how far away the stars are? For relatively nearby stars, other than our own sun, we can use a trick of perspective called parallax. This gives rise to a unit of distanced called the parsec, roughly equivalent to 3.26 lightyears.
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Size, distance, and the solar eclipse From the earth’s surface, it can be difficult to tell how big or far away objects in the solar system are. From the earth’s surface, as illustrated by yesterday’s total solar eclipse, the moon and sun are the same apparent size. Here’s a slightly cheesy YouTube video that describes …
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The sound of the big bang Today we take a closer look at the sound of the big bang © John g. Cramer – 2003, which he created from the data gathered by the WMAP satellite. Here’s his original article on the subject. Here are a bunch of versions of the sound of different lengths, …
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When rocks go boom In 2013, a 10 to 11 ton rock exploded in the skys over Russia. That came in handy when I wanted an explosion sound effect. As Long as I used it, I may as well make an episode out of it. Here’s a video of the event, and a couple of …