10/23/2024
This is the remains of a supernova, or a star that reached the end of its life and exploded. A star is a balance between two forces, the force of nuclear fusion in the core pushing outward, and gravity pushing inward. When these forces are balanced, you have yourself a star. Hydrogen gas is compressed under its own weight in the core of the star to extreme pressure. The molecules are moving so fast under this pressure that they collide and āfuseā to create a hydrogen bomb.
Itās really hard to get protons to fuse because they have positive charge and repel. The only way you can overcome this force of repulsion is to expose them to extreme pressure, which heats them up, and heat is really just code for molecules moving really fast. If the protons move fast enough they can overwhelm the repulsive force and collide. Boom. You have yourself a nuclear explosion pushing outward.
You expand until the force of gravity inward is equal to the explosive force outward. Hydrogen gas (with one proton in the nucleus) falls at a controlled rate into the core of the star where the pressure is high enough to ignite fusion, resulting in helium (two protons in the nucleus).
So what happens when you run out of hydrogen? Explosive force outward goes bye bye, gravity is still there, so you collapse. That is until the pressure gets even higher than before, at which point itās hot enough to fuse 3 helium atoms (two protons each) to get Carbon (6 protons), and the nuclear fire continues even hotter. This is where elements come from.
Youāre mostly made out of Carbon so you can thank stellar evolution for that. This process of running out of fuel, then burning the next element continues until you get iron (if youāre a big enough star), which is the end of the road for the star. So how do we get all the elements heavier than iron? Supernova, which is what youāre looking at.
Once all the fuel is burned, the force of gravity implodes the star with such force that the remaining elements fuse together to get the heavier elements in one spectacular explosion.