Orionid meteor Shower

        Last night at 3am before I went to bed I went back outside to view the Orionid meteor shower after an unsuccessful attempt at 10pm when I didn’t see a one. Orion was higher in the Northeast sky and I wasn’t let down! Even though the third quarter Moon was washing out the smaller meteors I saw many quickly shoot across the sky in bright white streaks, too cool!

More on Nucleosynthesis

        I went for my evening walk and listened to the astronomy lecture on “Nucleosynthesis”. They discussed the process of Stellar Nucleosynthesis where heavier elements are made by the proton-proton cycle that creates lighter elements in cool stars, and the carbon-nitrogen-oxygen cycle in stars that are larger than 1.4 solar masses. These larger stars burn and create elements all the way up to iron 57 that needs more energy than the star can produce to burn and there is no pressure holding up the stars core, and the star collapses (depending on its size) into a neutron star or a black hole. This is called Explosive Nucleosynthesis. The collapse takes less than a second and creates a tremendous amount of energy to bombard iron and other elements with neutrons to create heavier elements like gold, uranium, and the like. There is another Explosive process: one that involves an accretion disk that surrounds a white dwarf, a neutron star, or a black hole. In each case, it involves a binary system where the dwarf, a neutron star, or a black hole sucks matter from a neighboring large star, the disk reaches critical mass, and goes nova repeatedly. In addition, there is one other process where an old star that is rich in neutrons speeding from its core hit other atoms in the stars atmosphere to combine into heavier atoms. I’ll have to combine all that I have written so far on Nucleosynthesis and add to it later when I have time, but right or wrong; this is how I understand the process at this time. We are indeed made of star stuff!

Big Bang Nucleosynthesis

        Went for my evening walk listening again to “Nucleosynthesis”. It starts with the “Big Bang Nucleosynthesis” at ten billion degrees where high-speed collisions occur in a soup of Protons, Neutrons, and Electrons. A free Proton catches an Electron and becomes a Hydrogen atom. The Hydrogen atom fuses with another Hydrogen atom to form Deuterium with one Proton and one Neutron, and releases a Positron (antielectron-antimatter that is annihilated when it encounters and Electron, producing two high-energy Photons- Gamma Rays), and a Neutrino (an elementary particle that has little mass and doesn’t carry an electric charge). Then the Deuterium fuses into Helium-3, and two Helium-3 fuses into Helium-4 that is very stable. An increase in energy was released as heavier isotopes and elements were fused. In the first three minutes after the Big Bang most of the Deuterium was converted into Helium and small amounts of Lithium, and nothing heavier because things cooled down and the process stopped. I’ll listen to it again hopefully tomorrow and write about Stellar Nucleosynthesis.

Nucleosynthesis: Elements from Stars

        I went on my evening walk listening to a new astronomy lecture called “Nucleosynthesis: Elements from Stars”. Nucleosynthesis is the formation of elements from either the Big Bang (light elements no greater than Lithium); Stellar Nucleosynthesis (heavier elements from Carbon to Calcium); Explosive Nucleosynthesis (elements heavier than Iron) created by Supernova; and Cosmic Ray Spallation that creates lighter elements by bombardment of gas and dust in the interstellar medium. Some of this I already knew but the term for it “Nucleosynthesis” is new to me. There was so much discussed in the lecture, and for me to understand fully the process, I’ll have to listen to it again and add to this post later. I did catch one error though; they said that light takes over a hundred thousand years to reach the surface from the Sun’s core, when in fact it takes around thirty-three thousand years. I think they had gotten their data from an old NASA site that hasn’t corrected it to the new theory yet.

A little stargazing with binoculars

I went outside with my binoculars to do a little stargazing. Fat Cat was glad to have my company and sat on my lap wanting to be scratched. Found the Andromeda galaxy for the first time this year. The Pleiades cluster was rising out of the east. At this angle in the eastern sky, it looked to me like a silhouette of a person, maybe Lincoln. Cool!

Higgs Boson degeneracy?

        I got to thinking about the Higgs Boson and if it is what’s at the center of black holes- that all matter is compressed into these Higgs Bosons. I read that the Higgs Boson is what gives matter mass. A very large star would first implode to the electron degeneracy pressure which holds the core, and then collapse further to neutron degeneracy, and then finally to a singularity where the Higgs Boson degeneracy takes over. This is all speculation on my part and they haven’t even found the Higgs Boson yet.

The Inverse Square Law

        I was so tired from all that work that I just laid down for a little while and relaxed. Then I went for an early evening walk and listened to a questions and answers astrophysics lecture. One question I thought interesting was about the force of magnetism. Why is it that the Earth’s magnetic field can be over whelmed by small refrigerator magnets? The answer was that the magnetic force loses its power because of the inverse square law- it loses it strength inversely proportional to the square of the distance to the source. Therefore, you can take a small magnet and place it next to a compass, which over powers the Earth’s magnetic field. Then draw the small magnet away by several feet- it no longer affects the compass and the Earth’s magnetic field takes back over because it’s so prevailing- 4000 miles beneath our feet and still extends way out into the upper atmosphere and into space to reflect high-energy particles emitted from the Sun solar wind causing auroras and protecting life.