Stars seem to have a longer fertile life
Recent studies conducted by NASA and ESA scientists, with the help of Herschel space observatory, reveal that stars may have a longer fertile life than previously calculated.
If you know nothing about Herschel Space Observatory, I would definitely recommend you to take a quick look at this previous articles I've written, which will help you understand why Herschel Space Observatory has contributed so much to science and astronomy.
Hopefully by now you've read the previous articles, so let me proceed with this new discovery.
Scientists used to predict, in an indirect and uncertain way (sic), the age and fertility of stars based on their available mass.
Depending on how much mass and its contents (usually all stars are composed of the same fundamental materials neeeded) a star will produce a specific amount of planets. According to NASA scientists, up until today, stars had a finite amount of time, or range of age in which it is capable of producing planets, everything went down until Herschel came to say "Hey hey hey, that idea is old-fashioned by now".
The analyzed star is:
Name: TW Hydrae
Age: 10 million years old
Distance: 176 Light years (1 light year=66,000 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun, that means [150,000,000*66,000*176= 1.74 *10^15 km away]
This Sea Serpent Disk (Hydrae) looks something similar to this:
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| Credits: NASA |
Supposedly, this aparently old star, which had no potential of producing any other planet, has the capability of still producing at least 50 more planets the size of Jupiter!
If you're trying to imagine this, don't worry, here's an artist's concept from NASA:
Now let's get to the interesting part: Why were scientists previous predictions wrong?
How come such an important discovery had been so well kept beneath the dust, ice and heavy metals of this planet-forming star?
Well, as you may expect, such discovery is not as easy as it sounds.
EXPLAIN
One of the major components needed to create planets is Hydrogen. Hydrogen's atom is like shown below:
Only one proton and one electron, the simplest element on earth. Now, scientists have no way (yet) of measuring such "light-weigh" hydrogen, therefore no direct way of knowing "how much hydrogen [rich planetary building block] is available in a star". What can we do?
"Using Herschel, scientists were able to take a fresh look at the disk with the space telescope to analyze light coming from TW Hydrae and pick out the spectral signature of a gas called hydrogen deuteride. Simple hydrogen molecules are the main gas component of planets, but they emit light at wavelengths too short to be detected by Herschel. Gas molecules containing deuterium, a heavier version of hydrogen, emit light at longer, far-infrared wavelengths that Herschel is equipped to see. This enabled astronomers to measure the levels of hydrogen deuteride and obtain the weight of the disk with the highest precision yet." (NASA)"
Now, what's deuterium?
This is what Deuterium looks like:
As you can see, compared to simple Hydrogen, Deuterium (from greek deuteros, meaning second) it has a proton, an electron and a neutron, making it a "heavy hydrogen" isotope.
Here is another image to show the difference:
- The chemical symbol for deuterium is D. Sometimes the symbol 2H
- Deuterium is a stable isotope of hydrogen
- The natural abundance of deuterium in the ocean is approximately of 156.25ppm, which is one atom in 6,400 of hydrogen.
- Deuterium is used as a tracer in nuclear fusion reactors and to slow down neutrons in heavy water moderatoed fission reactors.
As you can see, thanks to one of the three isotopes of hydrogen, scientists have been able to reconsider their methods of analyzing our universe.
If we have found this new method, that was blinding and maniputaling our observations, what could we expect to find in the near future if what we see, as Einstein once said, is only the tail of what we imagine is a Lion...what if it is actually an elephant...
Thanks dear readers!
stay in touch
I.
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