Far out cosmology: spreading elements around (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, February 25, 2023, 03:54 (425 days ago) @ David Turell

On shock waves:

https://www.universetoday.com/160207/some-elements-arrived-on-earth-by-surfing-supernov...

"When stars die, they spread the elements they’ve created in their cores out to space. But, other objects and processes in space also create elements. Eventually, that “star stuff” scatters across the galaxy in giant debris clouds. Later on—sometimes millions of years later it settles onto planets. What’s the missing link between element creation and deposition on some distant world?

"That’s the question researchers asked themselves for years as they tried to figure out how heavy elements like manganese, iron, and plutonium showed up on Earth. It turns out they’re made in different processes, often in different parts of the Milky Way. Yet, they’ve been found layered together on Earth’s seabed. That implies they arrived about the same time, despite their different origins.

"Scientists from the University of Hertfordshire in the UK and the Konkoly Observatory, Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences in Hungary put together some theories and computer models to simulate how elements travel through space. The answer they came up with: the elements from faraway events are carried by supernova shock fronts just like surfers catching a wave.

"To understand how stuff from distant conflagrations ended up on Earth, it’s worth taking a quick look at those events. First, there are the Type II supernovae. They occur when a supermassive star dies. That’s one at least eight times the mass of the Sun. These stars fuse heavier and heavier elements (such as carbon) in their cores. When they get to creating iron, they don’t have enough energy to keep up the production line. The cores collapse and then everything expands outward very rapidly in a supernova explosion. That’s enough to send its heavy elements racing through space.

"Next, there are Type Ia supernovae. These happen in a binary pair of stars. Material from a main-sequence star accretes onto its partner, a white dwarf. When too much material accumulates, there’s an explosion. That results in the “nucleosynthesis” of heavier elements, including manganese.

"Another catastrophic event that likely creates heavy elements is the collision (or merger) of two neutron stars. As they spiral in toward each other and eventually smash up, they release a shower of neutrons. Those, in turn, bombard nearby atoms. This “r-process” event very quickly produces heavy elements such as plutonium.

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"The modeling effort shows that isotopes can propagate through large areas of a galaxy via supernova shock waves. These fronts sweep up collections of elements from various sites."

Comment: strs make out necessary elements. Now we know how they get here. It fits my theory that God evolves aspects of reality. In this case He sets in motion processes He knows will work and lets it happen.