Far out cosmology: our sun may be very different: (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, September 10, 2021, 19:36 (956 days ago) @ David Turell

The sun seems to contain more metals than other stars produce:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/09/210908180617.htm

"Galaxies are made up of a collection of stars and are formed by the condensation of the gas of the intergalactic medium composed of mostly hydrogen and a bit of helium. This gas does not contain metals unlike the gas in galaxies -- in astronomy, all chemical elements heavier than helium are collectively called "metals," although they are atoms in gaseous form..... When a star that has reached the end of its life explodes, it expels the metals it has produced, such as iron, zinc, carbon and silicon, feeding these elements into the gas of the galaxy. These atoms can then condense into dust, especially in the colder, denser parts of the galaxy. "Initially, when the Milky Way was formed, more than 10 billion years ago, it had no metals. Then the stars gradually enriched the environment with the metals they produced," continues the researcher. When the amount of metals in this gas reaches the level that is present in the Sun, astronomers speak of Solar metallicity.

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"Thanks to this dual observation technique, the astronomers have found that not only is the Milky Way's environment not homogeneous, but that some of the areas studied reach only 10% of the Solar metallicity. "This discovery plays a key role in the design of theoretical models on the formation and evolution of galaxies," says Jens-Kristian Krogager, researcher at the UNIGE's Department of Astronomy. "From now on, we will have to refine the simulations by increasing the resolution, so that we can include these changes in metallicity at different locations in the Milky Way."

"These results have a strong impact on our understanding of the evolution of galaxies and of our own in particular. Indeed, metals play a fundamental role in the formation of stars, cosmic dust, molecules and planets. And we now know that new stars and planets could be formed today from gases with very different compositions."

Comment: our sun produces the necessary elements we need to support evolution and our lives. This study shows how special it is and in my mind adds to the fine-tuning argument for the existence of God.