xragdolloutofspacex

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You Are Made of Stardust

Though the billions of people on Earth may come from different areas, we share a common heritage: we are all made of stardust! From the carbon in our DNA to the calcium in our bones, nearly all of the elements in our bodies were forged in the fiery hearts and death throes of stars.

The building blocks for humans, and even our planet, wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for stars. If we could rewind the universe back almost to the very beginning, we would just see a sea of hydrogen, helium, and a tiny bit of lithium.

The first generation of stars formed from this material. There’s so much heat and pressure in a star’s core that they can fuse atoms together, forming new elements. Our DNA is made up of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorus. All those elements (except hydrogen, which has existed since shortly after the big bang) are made by stars and released into the cosmos when the stars die.

Each star comes with a limited fuel supply. When a medium-mass star runs out of fuel, it will swell up and shrug off its outer layers. Only a small, hot core called a white dwarf is left behind. The star’s cast-off debris includes elements like carbon and nitrogen. It expands out into the cosmos, possibly destined to be recycled into later generations of stars and planets. New life may be born from the ashes of stars.

Massive stars are doomed to a more violent fate. For most of their lives, stars are balanced between the outward pressure created by nuclear fusion and the inward pull of gravity. When a massive star runs out of fuel and its nuclear processes die down, it completely throws the star out of balance. The result? An explosion!

Supernova explosions create such intense conditions that even more elements can form. The oxygen we breathe and essential minerals like magnesium and potassium are flung into space by these supernovas.

Supernovas can also occur another way in binary, or double-star, systems. When a white dwarf steals material from its companion, it can throw everything off balance too and lead to another kind of cataclysmic supernova. Our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will study these stellar explosions to figure out what’s speeding up the universe’s expansion. 

This kind of explosion creates calcium – the mineral we need most in our bodies – and trace minerals that we only need a little of, like zinc and manganese. It also produces iron, which is found in our blood and also makes up the bulk of our planet’s mass!

A supernova will either leave behind a black hole or a neutron star – the superdense core of an exploded star. When two neutron stars collide, it showers the cosmos in elements like silver, gold, iodine, uranium, and plutonium.

Some elements only come from stars indirectly. Cosmic rays are nuclei (the central parts of atoms) that have been boosted to high speed by the most energetic events in the universe. When they collide with atoms, the impact can break them apart, forming simpler elements. That’s how we get boron and beryllium – from breaking star-made atoms into smaller ones.

Half a dozen other elements are created by radioactive decay. Some elements are radioactive, which means their nuclei are unstable. They naturally break down to form simpler elements by emitting radiation and particles. That’s how we get elements like radium. The rest are made by humans in labs by slamming atoms of lighter elements together at super high speeds to form heavier ones. We can fuse together elements made by stars to create exotic, short-lived elements like seaborgium and einsteinium.

From some of the most cataclysmic events in the cosmos comes all of the beauty we see here on Earth. Life, and even our planet, wouldn’t have formed without them! But we still have lots of questions about these stellar factories. 

In 2006, our Stardust spacecraft returned to Earth containing tiny particles of interstellar dust that originated in distant stars, light-years away – the first star dust to ever be collected from space and returned for study. You can help us identify and study the composition of these tiny, elusive particles through our Stardust@Home Citizen Science project.

Our upcoming Roman Space Telescope will help us learn more about how elements were created and distributed throughout galaxies, all while exploring many other cosmic questions. Learn more about the exciting science this mission will investigate on Twitter and Facebook.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

A remarkable Jacobean re-emergence after 200 years of yellowing varnish Courtesy Philip Mould

Wow Finland is such a beautiful country!

Ember

Horse sitting. “He became very friendly with a horse, and used to sit between his ears for hours at a time.” Animal artisans and other studies of birds and beasts. 1907.

Egypt is divided. Vast armies amass, while great leaders conspire.

Snowdon - Wales (by Alejandro Roman Gonzalez) 

Climb a mountain once in your life, you won't regret it.😊☁

Aww.. how can I resist this cutie fluffy little thing? Tell me???!

I would never get tired of watching the sunrise. 

Breathtaking view awaits at the top of the hill <3

Ψ Survive the present and later will have to take care of itself  Ψ ◊  Whoever we meet and Encounter, no matter how briefly, no matter how vaguely, even if it's just a glance on the street- each person that enters our awareness, receives a sliver of our soul in exchange for a part of theirs.   ◊ It is futile to try and understand the meaning behind, but it is wise to embrace the change that this Encounter allows.

excerpt from Alleria by EinatSegal

Ugly

It is funny when you are ugly on purpose. It is sad when it is on accident.

Do this four times repeatedly and you’ll be out. But how does it work? There’s some real brain science behind it.

#Just LOL

Octopus hiding in the eye socket of a dead mola, Monterey Bay, January 2015.

View to the Stanserhrn, Robert Zünd

My nature trips... love love <3

Thought this was interesting

Alexander Semenov 

Weird Space, 2012

”Red Sea in February is full of strange translucent creatures. It’s the jellyfish, ctenophores and salps. They have appeared on our planet long before us, but now for us they look like alien race, but not the typical representatives of the animal world. Ocean and the creatures who inhabit - it’s another universe, the cosmos, and you can see it by yourself.”

Website | Flickr

Cat doesn’t know what to do with the butterfly that flew on its paw.

The Garden of Eden with two Depictions of Adam and Eve, 1620, Attributed to Jan Breughel the Younger

remember that girl you called fat?

she doesn’t care. at all. you don’t matter to her.

imagine that

ESSENTIAL GUIDE: LOST CITIES

BY EDMUND RICHARDSON

Hidden in the depths of the sea, buried under hillsides, swallowed up by the jungle, or consumed by the wrath of the heavens – lost cities have always fascinated. Many people have gone in search of lost cities — believing in tall tales and ancient legends. Con-men, archaeologists, showmen, and adventurers have traveled over the mountains of Afghanistan, through the jungles of Cambodia, across the deserts of Jordan, and into the very strangest parts of the world, full of hope. But as many have discovered, finding a lost city can be the easy part — what happens next is when things get interesting.

Atlas Obscura is here to provide seven of the world’s lost cities,

The Eruption of Vesuvius by Night, Attributed to Henry Pether

Whitemargin Stargazer - Creepiest fish… ever. 

autumn variations

Mount Washington, New Hampshire, USA | by Klaus Brandstaetter