- #1
food4thought
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Hello everyone;
I am a new member and have little formal hard science ed, but have read many pop science books by Sagan, Hawking, and others. In light of this fact please try to formulate answers with this in mind... NO MATH SPAMMING ALLOWED lol
My question has to do with the chemical/molecular makeup of a star and the gas clouds they form from. If I understand correctly (never a sure thing ), stars are composed mainly of hydrogen. I would be interested in knowing what percentage of a star is actually hydrogen and what other molecules are present.
The reason for this question stems from a Discovery Science show I watched a while back that mentioned that when stars begin forming lead in their cores that it begins a rapid reaction that leads to the "death" of that star. This led me today to wonder about the Earth's molten metal core, and THAT led me to wonder why the sun/other stars did not have a similar core.
If I understand correctly, heavier elements would fall more quickly towards the largest gravity well in an area than the lighter elements, and we would end up with stars that have significant amounts of heavy elements near the core when they form from gas clouds, but that would mean that the hydrogen fusion reaction that drives stars would be contaminated with heavier elements from the beginning of a it's life.
What I am missing/misunderstanding? Thanks in advance for your replies/answers.
Mike
I am a new member and have little formal hard science ed, but have read many pop science books by Sagan, Hawking, and others. In light of this fact please try to formulate answers with this in mind... NO MATH SPAMMING ALLOWED lol
My question has to do with the chemical/molecular makeup of a star and the gas clouds they form from. If I understand correctly (never a sure thing ), stars are composed mainly of hydrogen. I would be interested in knowing what percentage of a star is actually hydrogen and what other molecules are present.
The reason for this question stems from a Discovery Science show I watched a while back that mentioned that when stars begin forming lead in their cores that it begins a rapid reaction that leads to the "death" of that star. This led me today to wonder about the Earth's molten metal core, and THAT led me to wonder why the sun/other stars did not have a similar core.
If I understand correctly, heavier elements would fall more quickly towards the largest gravity well in an area than the lighter elements, and we would end up with stars that have significant amounts of heavy elements near the core when they form from gas clouds, but that would mean that the hydrogen fusion reaction that drives stars would be contaminated with heavier elements from the beginning of a it's life.
What I am missing/misunderstanding? Thanks in advance for your replies/answers.
Mike
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