looking back at earth from orbit of saturn(voyager)
Post on 20-Dec-2015
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About as many stars in the observableuniverse as the number of grainsof dry sand on allthe beaches of world.
Carl Sagan
~100 billion galaxies, each with ~100 billion stars, so N ~1022
Compare: number of H2O molecules in 1 ml of water, or about N = 3 x1022
Net reaction: 4 protons (H) fuse to make a helium (He) nucleus, releasing energy: ~0.7% mass converted to
energy by ∆E = mc2
What keeps the sun shining??
The Crab Nebula:remnant from supernova explosion, observed in 1054 A.D.
Left behind: a pulsar, spinning neutron star.
SN explosions, the only way to make the elements beyond iron (Fe).
Relative atomicabundances in thegalaxy, normalized to Hydrogen (H =1.00).
Universe is still ~98%(H, He), as forged in the first minutes of theBig Bang.
Notice the Fe ‘hill’ of higher abundance (most stable nucleus)
Why might acarbon-based life, with H2O solvent be expected elsewhere?
The mass of atoms is in the nucleus, the size of an atom is the size of the electron ‘cloud’ (Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle)
The structure of atoms with ~all mass in the nucleus (protonsand neutrons), surrounded by a cloud of electrons
Naming atoms
Proton number defines the element
Isotopes have different numbersof neutrons for thesame number ofprotons (same element)
Electromagnetic radiation travels at the speed of light (c)
Photons have no mass Energy is proportional to frequency of the radiation
Electromagnetic energy is directly proportional to the frequency, and inversely proportional to wavelength
Photon Emission
System drops from a higher energy level to a lower one by spontaneously emitting a photon.
Emission
“Continuous” spectrum “Quantized” spectrum
Any E ispossible
Only certain E are ‘allowed’transitions
E E
White light can be spread into a rainbow of differentwavelengths (colors) by a prism or grating (Newton)
Emission spectrum of atomic H
Light Bulb:Continuous spectrum
Hydrogen Lamp:Discrete lines only
Quantized, not continuous