A simplified summary of the Physics Research Paper: “Synthesis of the Elements in Stars” Published in“Reviews of Modern Physics” Oct. 1957.
NOW… “What is Star Dust?”
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Many people are interested in the comment “We are made of Star Dust”, but what does that mean? This comment is based on this landmark physics paper defining the nature and composition of stars and how all organic and physical aspects of the universe, including our planet, are made up of that “Star Dust”–ie: the particles that emerged from the Big Bang and subsequent exploding suns. This article is a summary of that paper, but written on an elementary-grade level… figuring we all may learn something about stars and elements if this very academic and scientific research was explained in easy-to-understand language.
THE BASICS: The Stars have made elements by squishing atomic particles together under lots of pressure while they are very hot. This academic paper, written way back in 1957, explains how stars create these elements. It is like a cosmic cooking pot for making planets. This was BIG NEWS in the 1950s and the scientists’ world expanded when they learned how stars and the universe works, based on this physics research paper, compiled by four “University Professors” in England and the United States.
What have we learned about stars and how they work within the system that is the cosmos?
Stars are like huge factories in space that make different elements–the building blocks of everything around us. In 1957, a smart group of scientists wrote a paper about this in a special publication called ‘Reviews of Modern Physics.’ They talked about how stars use their super-hot and super-squeezed dense mass to create the elements. This paper helped us understand that stars are like cosmic cooks where simple things are mixed and baked to make complex elements. It’s like learning the secret recipe of how the universe was formed!
Exactly what elements were created and how?
Imagine stars as gigantic pots where this cosmic cooking happens. Inside these stars, it is incredibly hot and dense, meaning things are squished together really tightly. This extreme heat and pressure make the tiny particles inside the stars to bump into each other hard, with a lot of energy.
These particles are like building blocks of planets, and when they collide, they can stick together to create new things – new elements! Elements are the most basic solids and gases that makeup everything, just like how the same letters of the alphabet can combine differently to create different words.
The special thing is that stars have different stages of life, just like people do. When a star is young, it mostly has lighter elements like hydrogen and helium. But as it gets older and hotter, it starts to cook up new elements in its core. Imagine the star’s core as a super-hot kitchen, where particles are mixing and merging to form heavier elements like carbon, oxygen, and even gold and silver!
The research paper from 1957 helped scientists understand this cosmic cooking process better. They figured out that stars are like the universe’s chefs, turning simple ingredients into more complex ones over billions of years. This knowledge not only tells us about stars but also about the origins of everything we see around us, from the planets to people.
How did the elements and gasses come together to create our star, the sun, and all of the planets in our solar system?
Long ago, before our Sun and planets existed, there was a vast cloud of gas and dust floating in space. This cloud was made up of tiny particles, including some of the elements we talked about earlier. Over time, something special happened – maybe a nearby star exploded or a passing force nudged the cloud. This made the cloud start to collapse in on itself due to gravity, just like a bunch of magnets attracted together.
As the cloud collapsed, it began to spin, forming a swirling disk. In the center of this disk, where the most material gathered, our Sun started to form. It became really hot and bright, lighting up our solar system.**
Around the Sun, in the leftover swirling material of the disk, smaller clumps began to form. These clumps were like seeds that would grow into planets. Each planet-to-be gathered more and more material as it traveled around the young Sun. The heavier elements that stars create – like carbon, oxygen, and iron – were a crucial part of this material.
Over millions of years, the planets kept growing and taking shape. The ones closer to the Sun, like Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, were rocky because they formed from the solid bits of the disk. The outer planets, like Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, are bigger and mostly made of gases like hydrogen and helium, along with some heavier stuff.
So, in a way, the elements that stars cooked up in their cores ended up being the key ingredients that formed not only our Sun but also the planets and everything else in our solar system. It’s like a grand celestial recipe where stars are the first chefs!
Focusing on Earth, please describe our rare situation, with water, oxygen, carbon dioxide, etc. making this planet the perfect home, teaming with life.
Billions of years ago, Earth was not like it is today. It was a hot and rocky place, and there was no air to breathe, no water to drink, and no living creatures. But over a long, long time, amazing things happened that turned Earth into the beautiful and vibrant place we call home.
When Earth first formed, it was very hot from all the energy released during its creation. As it cooled down, some of the elements that were already on Earth, like iron and other heavy materials, sank to the center, forming a solid core. This core produces a magnetic field that protects our planet from harmful space particles.
On the surface, things began to change. Water, one of the most important ingredients for life, came to Earth in the form of ice from asteroids and comets crashing into it. As Earth cooled further, the ice melted and filled in the low areas, creating oceans and seas.
Interestingly, our atmosphere – that layer of gases surrounding the Earth, developed. First, it mainly consisted of carbon dioxide and water vapor, along with some nitrogen and methane.
Life Begins. (Editor’s Note: As editor, I personally believe in a higher power and the spiritual side of life. This article does not delve into the “Spark of Life”, considered by many to be a religious question.)
Single-celled life, bacteria, found the sun-filtered, warm, and salty waters of Earth’s primordial oceans to be the perfect environment to thrive and reproduce. These tiny organisms took in the carbon dioxide and released oxygen back into the world, through a process called photosynthesis. This process gradually increased the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere, making possible more and more complex forms of life, taking millions, and millions of years.
As time passed, the oceans teemed with fish and aquatic creatures. Some fish ultimately used fins as legs to crawl out of the water onto dry land and billions of species of plants thrived on Earth, producing even more oxygen until the atmosphere became sufficient for, all of the diverse creatures. As animals adapted to survive in the different environments on Earth, they eventually became the many species of dinosaurs. After a cataclysmic meteor crash, the sun was blocked out by the cloud of dust, etc., the tilt of the Earth possibly changed, and due to draughts, floods, cold, heat, dramatic climate change, and a lack of food or water, most dinosaurs died off. After tens of millions of years animals whose babies are born instead of hatched, with newborns nurtured through mother’s milk from mammary glands, the “Mammals” became the dominant species on Earth.
Much later our species of mammals–humans–armed with a large brain and the ability to reason and pass that information from one generation to the next, but most importantly by having the ability to make tools with their hands with opposable thumbs, allowing these “homosapians” (humans) to control much of their own destiny.
Since man became the dominant species, we have organized the hunting parties for food, and the division of labor in tribes. Civilizations have developed with systems for providing food, water, and waste removal, and technologies have been engineered, with machines to overcome Earth’s gravity in order to explore space, and electrically engineered computers have been invented to speed up our access to math equations, all knowledge, and answers. During all of man’s existence, we have been fascinated by our moon, other planets, the sun, and the billions of stars we can see in this vast universe in every direction from Earth!
Earth’s creation had the right mix of elements, to form an atmosphere with oxygen, water on the surface, and fresh water in the form of rain. Earth’s creation is an incredible story… our planet transformed from a barren rock floating in space into a beautiful blue and green thriving and diverse planet, an ideal setting for life. Erosion, weather, water, earthquakes, and continuous volcanic activity constantly change our planet as our solar system goes through its life cycle.
How are the original elements (created by the big bang and exploding suns) inside of us… How are humans made from stardust?
Long, long ago, there was a massive explosion called the Big Bang that started time and everything in the universe. First, there were only tiny particles of matter and the energy from the explosion. These simple things mixed and changed over time to create all the different elements or building blocks. Think of elements like puzzle pieces, when properly put together, they can create every aspect of our universe – like our sun, air, rocks, and even every human body. Some elements were made inside stars that cooked them for a long time. These newer elements were released into space when those stars (other suns) exploded, the natural ending of a star’s long life.
When our Sun and its planets, including Earth, were forming, they used this stardust, new elements as the ingredients for our solar system. And guess what? We are a part of this amazing story about stars, because the elements that make up our bodies: carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, etc., were created in those stars billions of years ago!
When we say ‘Humans are made of Star Dust”, it means the very atoms and elements making up our bodies were once cooked up in the hearts of stars. Meaning we are connected to the universe in a very special way because we share the same “stuff” that came from the Big Bang.
The Earth and all around us are also made of Star Dust, and we continue creation through man’s contributions, through our thoughts and actions.
NOTE: The paper Synthesis of the Elements in Stars became known as “B2FH” based on the initials of its authors: Margaret Burbidge, Geoffrey Burbidge, William A. Fowler, and Fred Hoyle was written from 1955 to 1956 at the University of Cambridge in the UK and Caltech in the US, then published in Reviews of Modern Physics in 1957.
**Opinion & Theory: Science and religion can tell the same exact story. Some theologians believe the seven days of creation mentioned in the Bible were not based on the twenty-four-hour “day” or one rotation of the earth, but the “Seven Days ” mentioned in Genesis could have been based on a piece of higher knowledge, referring to the rotation of this entire universe. Meaning that each day, one rotation would actually equal millions of Earth years. This aligns science with religion. It took six rotations of this huge, probably ball-shaped, universe… pivoting around the origin point of the Big Bang. The biblical timetable for the creation of Earth and life was six days, plus a seventh before rest… Day 1) light & darkness, Day 2) sun, moon & stars, Day 3) clouds, atmosphere & water, Day 4) land, plants & vegetation, Day 5) fish & birds, Day 6) animals & man, Day 7) a pause for review, and…IT WAS GOOD!
(Source: staff research and AI research using many sources on the internet, opinion, and the research paper itself.)
