[SunkenCiv]

The tiny red spot in this image is one of the most efficient star-making galaxies ever observed, converting gas into stars at the maximum possible rate. The galaxy is shown here in an image from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), which first spotted the rare galaxy in infrared light. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/IRAM

[43north]

Oh big deal. American Idol turned gas into stars for a couple of years at least...

[GeronL]

Galaxy on Fire

[SkyDancer]

Give it a minute and the Obama regime will find a way to tax it.

[SkyDancer]

Give it a minute and the Obama regime will find a way to tax it.

[BipolarBob]

That is one pissed off galaxy.

[Liberty Valance]

1960 Ford Galaxie Sunliner convertible

[rawcatslyentist]

G_d created all of this.

You tell him what can or can't be done....

[supercat]

I 'read' the audio book "The Disappearing Spoon", got an appreciation for how stars work. Gravity tries to compress matter close enough to cause nuclear fusion, but thermal kinetic energy will try to keep atoms apart. The higher the rate at which lighter atoms fuse, the more heat will be produced; the increasing temperatures will then serve to reduce the rate of fusion, which will in turn stabilize temperatures.

As the supplies of lighter elements get used up, temperatures drop, allowing pressures to grow high enough to fuse heavier elements. Each heavier element becomes less effective at producing heat, however, until iron is reached. Beyond that point, fusion ends up absorbing heat rather than producing it; at that point, the quasi-equilibrium between gravity and thermal kinetic energy completely breaks down, and the star's collapse accelerates until all the built-up energy gets released in a super nova which sends all sorts of stuff spewing every which way.

It's mind boggling to think that clouds of hydrogen can be dense enough to form together and start stellar furnaces, but sparse enough that the stars thus formed remain distinct. The scale of the phenomena involved is incomprehensible.

[Flick Lives]

The throttle must be stuck wide open on this galaxy.