Big Ol' Group Hug

Alright to start things off I feel as I should reflect on the course I am doing this blog for so far. I've read through chapters one, two, and most of three and have explored the later sections quite thoroughly and it's all so interesting! So pretty much.... I'm pumped for this semester!

So back to our journey through the life of our universe! We have just witnessed the first few seconds of the big bang. We saw matter and antimatter particles appear and disappear, we saw quarks, neutrinos, and then neutrons, protons, and electrons. These particles then combined into the most basic of elements; Hydrogen.

Once enough of these hydrogen atoms are formed they start to collect into gas clouds called nebulae (nebula for singular). These nebulae continue to collect hydrogen particles and grow larger. BUT! As they grow larger the gravitational force pushing in on the center of the nebula increases. It's like a giant group hug of hydrogen atoms! How sweet!

Eventually, the atoms are squeezed together with such pressure and force they start to fuse together. The more pressure exerted on the center the hotter it gets. The hotter it gets, the more energy there is. This energy will be noted in a few paragraphs.

With enough pressure the Hydrogen atoms fuse into Helium, then, with enough pressure, the Helium fuse into higher mass elements like nitrogen, carbon, oxygen, all the way up to the heaviest of naturally occurring elements such as Uranium. As heavier elements are created, there densities cause them to layer out, think of it as a really big, hot, onion.

This continues until we have a fully formed star! Yay!

Now we know where there is life, there is death. After billions of years of fusing hydrogen, a star will get to a point where it will essentially run out of elements to fuse. Remember that energy I was talking about? Well that energy created an outward force that balanced out the crushing force of gravity (F-star = F-gravity). Once the star stops the fusion process, the energy source is depleted and the outward force stops. Now gravity takes over.

Wow, that's some awesome stuff! Now what happens next? Hmmm I know.... But! That's a story for the next installment of my blog!

-MrAstroWhat

Food for thought: We live in one of an infinite number of parallel universes. As people, we have an ability to conceptualize an event or thing in a certain way. Since there are an infinite number of parallel universes, everytime you think of something, you are creating the concept of a different type of world and, with an infinite number of universes, that means one of them is now the one you thought of. If that makes sense to you :)

and yes.... I changed the background =P