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Posted on 08/18/2010 10:06:11 AM PDT by decimon
‘I thought it burned off it’s fuel (mass). Where did all the mass come from?’
It’s a process called ‘nucleosynthesis’. The energy comes from fusing hydrogen and hydrogen together to form helium.
In stars larger then the sun, they continue to fuse helium to produce Carbon, Nitrogen and Oxygen.
Thanks for posting your patient answers. Don’t worry if the questioner gets it or not.
There are probably others besides myself who enjoy reading the background details that you are providing (stuff that the main article assumes the reader already knows).
Thanks again. Very interesting.
Why is it that iron is the end-point of stellar fusion? Why can’t iron fuse to become heavier elements as part of the normal star-burning progression? I’ve always wondered about this.
I know that the heavier elements are all created during a supernova but I’ve never understood why they can’t be created in the same fashion as the lighter ones are, by normal stellar fusion.
European astronomers have for the first time demonstrated that a magnetar — an unusual type of neutron star — was formed from a star with at least 40 times as much mass as the Sun. ... Westerlund 1, located 16,000 light-years away in the southern constellation of Ara..
(cough) Not to point out the obvious, but what they are observing from this 'magnatar happened 16,000 years ago. Ergo, for all we know Westerlund 1 could have went from magnetar to Super Nova 15,000 years ago and we won't know it for another thousand years. 
Gotta run. I have to hook up those 480V lines to the Magnets on my Cold Fusion Reactor I'm making in my garage. If that doesn't cause those darn Hydrogen Atoms to Fuse, I may have to rethink a step or two. Like replacing one with an Anti-Matter Hydrogen atom.
(its safe, really, honest -- I read a book on it)
HUH? Are you 'series'?
No offense, and I see you have your hands full already, but Einstein mathematically proved they exist, Hawking confirmed they exist, and the first one was 'seen'(1) by Cosmologists in 1971 (iirc).
Black Holes are a Fact of Science. Not even a 'theroy' now.
(1) the Black Hole itself isn't 'seen' (after all it's Black) but its existence confirmed by tracking orbits of stars around them. If a vertical Black Line on the axis is jagged (offset) at the star's orbit, there's a Black Hole in the middle.
Nuclear reactions are similar to chemical reactions in that some of the reactions are exothermic, and some are endothermic. It has to do with the binding energy between the products and the binding energy of the reactants.
In nuclear reactions you are looking at the binding energy within the nucleus.
Once Iron is fused, the next step would be to fuse Zinc. Zinc, unfortunately has more binding energy than you would get from fusing Iron.
Zinc, unfortunately has more binding energy than you would get from fusing Iron.And that extra needed energy is there during the time of a supernova?
Yep, that’s how we get elements heavier than Iron. That’s also why elements heavier than iron are so much rarer.
Star ping!
thanks
Hmmm... There seems to be a link between magnetars and pissing contests...
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