The random distribution of atoms spread through the universe was greater on some locations than others. The denser formations attracted more matter and the these regions became denser and hotter. As the gravity increased the center of the mass drew the matter form outside in. As the matter fell into the center mass the entire mass began to spin, this is because the motion of the particles has to go somewhere and it goes into creating spin, try it on a swivel chair or doing a pirouette as a figure skater, arms out slow turning arms in fast turning.
A quickly rotating ball of gas goes from being a globe to a disk with a hub in the center. This is critical for planet formation. As the disk forms the entire structure is hot and as the hub condenses that area heats up more. Soon the mass of hydrogen at the center gets so pressurized fro all the mass that has accumulated that the atoms are fused together at the center. This fusion is called a Triple Alpha reaction.
The Triple Alpha reaction is where four Hydrogen atoms, one proton and on electron, are converted into one Helium atom, two protons, two neutrons and two electrons, the excess electrons and the excess charges from the protons plus the energy expended by the process are released as energy, light photons. I was told that the photon created from the reaction at the center of a star can take up to a million years the get to the surface of the star and the reaction forces the sun to stop collapsing. The length of time that the star will continue this reaction is dependent on the size of the star, larger stars have more hydrogen fuel, but burn through it much faster than smaller stars. Our sun has an estimated lifetime of fifteen billion years and the biggest stars will only last a few million years, the smaller stars will last the longest, trillions of years.
When the nuclear reaction starts up in the star, all the material beings to get pushed away from the star by the constant stream of light coming Oort it, called e solar wind. Light elements like hydrogen get pushed right out of the solar system unless something grabs hold of them, other stars or planets. Planet formation is probably another talk.
The first stars were probably massive, mush bigger than our own. The universe was smaller and the materials were closer, the stars that started in the dense regions of space could draw more of the hydrogen to them and the bigger star probably devoured the smaller stars and got bigger.
As the stars fused their supply of hydrogen into helium the concentrations of these gasses changed and soon there would have been more helium than hydrogen. When this happened the hydrogen started to fuse to the helium and changing them to other elements. To create the conditions need to to fuel more reactions more mass was needed to fuse the materials together. For example it is known that our sun will stop fusing elements when carbon is reached, because our sun does not have much mass, but other stars will make other elements. The biggest stars make iron before the fusion process stops.
The first stars being larger, lasted only a few million years, fused hydrogen to make helium and fused hydrogen to the rest until iron was the main constituate of the core of the stars. Then the fussion in the star stopped, and the pressure outwards doused by that fusion stopped and the stars collapsed. Depending on the size of the star the core collapsed down to a white dwarf star for small stars like our own or neutron stars for larger stars, but for the largest stars the core becomes a black hole, which is neither black nor a hole. When a small star ends its life the white dwarf cannot gravitationally hold the elements in its mantle and corona, so these float away to form nebulas, for neutron stars and black holes, the end is more violent. The matter is collapses into the core and explodes outwards in an explosion that quite literally would wipe the atmosphere of every planet within one hundred light years. Good news however, the explosion creates all of the elements greater complexity than iron and spreads them out into the universe. All the elements like gold, silver, platinum, copper, lead, uranium and others are created in these explosions.
The shockwaves did other things. It moved hydrogen clouds into other hydrogen clouds causing more star formation and the black holes created by these stars probably formed the center of all the galaxies around. The new stars began like the first stars and they pulled matter into their cores and made more complex element and they did this for about ten billion years before our star was created. Our star is a fifth or sixth generation star, meaning that it has the remains of many supernova.
Next planet creation.
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