so nebula began to collapse under its
own gravity and spin faster a dense
clump of matter formed in the center
it’s called a protostar at first its
heat was due to friction but when the
clump reached 18 million degrees
Fahrenheit
nuclear fusion kicked in
four and a half billion years ago our
star was born
hydrogen atoms fuse together to form
helium and in the process release
photons it’s the first light made by our
Sun and it will keep on shining for four
billion years a vast nuclear furnace
nearly a million miles across from a
distance this process seems almost
peaceful with the sun’s power gently
radiating out into the early solar
system there was all sorts of activity
going on things were changing rapidly
violence explosions intense radiation we
had a pretty spectacular origin I think
recent research suggests the solar
system’s birth was far from peaceful our
Sun may in fact have been born out of
one of the most violent events in the
cosmos the explosive death of another
star
and even before that it seems there was
an explosion so huge that it created an
entire universe the Big Bang no one
knows what caused it but we think that
the Bang created space-time and all the
matter in the universe yet for
astrophysicists such as professor Stan
Woosley there’s a puzzle the Big Bang
produced almost none of the 88 naturally
occurring chemical elements when we look
around we don’t just see hydrogen and
helium
we see planets and people and we’re made
out of carbon and oxygen and planets are
made out of iron and silicon and that
didn’t all come from the Big Bang it had
to come from somewhere else here on
earth we have learned how to create new
elements for ourselves
nuclear technology the same thing
happens inside stars hydrogen and helium
from the Big Bang fuse to form heavier
elements and if the star is big enough
at the end of its life it does something
spectacular it explodes
the energy of a supernova explosion is
essentially equal to all of the energy
that the Sun will put out in its ten
billion year lifetime
own gravity and spin faster a dense
clump of matter formed in the center
it’s called a protostar at first its
heat was due to friction but when the
clump reached 18 million degrees
Fahrenheit
nuclear fusion kicked in
four and a half billion years ago our
star was born
hydrogen atoms fuse together to form
helium and in the process release
photons it’s the first light made by our
Sun and it will keep on shining for four
billion years a vast nuclear furnace
nearly a million miles across from a
distance this process seems almost
peaceful with the sun’s power gently
radiating out into the early solar
system there was all sorts of activity
going on things were changing rapidly
violence explosions intense radiation we
had a pretty spectacular origin I think
recent research suggests the solar
system’s birth was far from peaceful our
Sun may in fact have been born out of
one of the most violent events in the
cosmos the explosive death of another
star
and even before that it seems there was
an explosion so huge that it created an
entire universe the Big Bang no one
knows what caused it but we think that
the Bang created space-time and all the
matter in the universe yet for
astrophysicists such as professor Stan
Woosley there’s a puzzle the Big Bang
produced almost none of the 88 naturally
occurring chemical elements when we look
around we don’t just see hydrogen and
helium
we see planets and people and we’re made
out of carbon and oxygen and planets are
made out of iron and silicon and that
didn’t all come from the Big Bang it had
to come from somewhere else here on
earth we have learned how to create new
elements for ourselves
nuclear technology the same thing
happens inside stars hydrogen and helium
from the Big Bang fuse to form heavier
elements and if the star is big enough
at the end of its life it does something
spectacular it explodes
the energy of a supernova explosion is
essentially equal to all of the energy
that the Sun will put out in its ten
billion year lifetime
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