I am titled Melissa.
I've seen 20 revolutions around the sun.
Science + SciFi + Art
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Aspiring amateur astronomer.
Science enthusiast.
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This is what I post.
This is what I look like.
01/24/12
* What I post does not belong to me, unless otherwise stated, obviously. Please don't remove the credit when reblogging.
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![hr8938-cephei:
SN 1994D [x]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m36i15pCey1rswr23o1_1280.jpg)
SN 1994D [x]
![hr8938-cephei:
NGC 7129 [x]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2zemzVp641rswr23o1_1280.jpg)
NGC 7129 [x]
Star
In the image: A star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud. NASA/ESA image
A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth. Other stars are visible from Earth during the night, when they are not obscured by atmospheric phenomena, appearing as a multitude of fixed luminous points because of their immense distance. Historically, the most prominent stars on the celestial sphere were grouped together into constellations and asterisms, and the brightest stars gained proper names. Extensive catalogues of stars have been assembled by astronomers, which provide standardized star designations.
Neutron Star Scattering off a Super Massive Black Hole
As planets experience gravitational forces, they move to minimize their total energy, which is a sum of both gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy. In an attempt to minimize their energy when interacting with a massive black hole in the center of a galaxy, a large number of neutron stars scatter and enter eccentric orbits. As is seen in this picture, dense star environments can cause amazingly intricate patterns as the process progresses. Eventually, most of the stars escape the galaxy, leaving a less dense cluster that can interact with the central black hole in low-eccentricity orbits.
— Tim Koby ‘11
Department of Physics
The most astounding fact is the knowledge that the atoms that comprise life on Earth, the atoms that make up the human body are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light elements into heavy elements in their core under extreme temperatures and pressures. These stars, the high mass ones among them went unstable in their later years, they collapsed and then exploded scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy - guts made of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and all the fundamental ingredients of life itself. These ingredients become part of gas cloud that condense, collapse, form the next generation of solar systems stars with orbiting planets, and those planets now have the ingredients for life itself.
So that when I look up at the night sky and I know that yes, we are part of this universe, we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the Universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up – many people feel small because they’re small and the Universe is big – but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars. There’s a level of connectivity. That’s really what you want in life, you want to feel connected, you want to feel relevant, you want to feel like a participant in the goings on of activities and events around you. That’s precisely what we are, just by being alive…
Neil DeGrasse Tyson
