Thanks to for the questions that led to this piece! Ask your own question on Twitter using #AskASpaceman or by following Paul and /PaulMattSutter.ĭfjchem721 said:But perhaps the most amazing thing about the universe is something we do not even know about, or could ever understand.Like the amazing result of my calculations: This Universe is like an egg, the galaxies are the cells of a placenta, inside it is occurring the embryogenesis of a unique universal system, which began after the Big Bang in shape of atoms, then evolved to shape of astronomic system, from here evolved into cell´s systems and today, here and now, it is in shape of human brain. Learn more by listening to the episode 'What's the most amazing thing about the universe?" on the Ask A Spaceman podcast, available on iTunes and on the Web at .
The next time you get in a car accident, take a moment to think about momentum, and how it applies throughout the universe, wherever you are. What will happen when those galaxies collide? Conservation of energy and momentum. Why is that neutron star changing its rotation speed? Conservation of energy and momentum. Why is that gas cloud radiating energy? Conservation of energy and momentum. Scientists use these principles to understand just about everything in the cosmos. It's rare to find a paper in astronomy or physics that doesn't mention, in some way, the conservation of energy and momentum.
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Using these simple statements, investigators can reconstruct the scene of the accident, figuring out which driver was at fault and what led to the collision.Īnd cars aren't the only thing in the universe that smash together.Ĭolliding stars. When two vehicles collide, the laws of conservation of energy and momentum apply: the total amount of energy and momentum before the collision must equal the total amount of energy and momentum after the collision. It can be as simple and straightforward as, say, a car crash. Laws of motionīut you don't have to use esoteric equations of relativity or complicated calculations of nuclear reactions to discover the universality of physics. From the tiniest of atoms to the largest of stars, nuclear physics - a relative newcomer in the world of physics - unites the cosmos in a surprising way.
Nuclear fusion of hydrogen is how stars power themselves for billions of years, and the equations that physicists use to understand that process are the exact same ones they use to turn nuclear reactions into usable energy. These attempts, as a rule, failed quite miserably, with even the best explanations only reaching a few million years.īut nuclear physics was a whole new ball game, and once physicists figured out the conditions necessary to ignite nuclear fusion (namely, insanely high pressures, temperatures, and densities), they realized that such conditions aren't always human-made (inside nuclear bombs and reactors) but can be found in nature itself: in the hearts of stars. Prior to this time, scientists had tried all sorts of attempts to reconcile the age of the Earth as revealed by geology and paleontology (billions of years) with all the known physical ways to keep the sun burning so brightly.
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When physicists began to crack the nuclear code in the 1940s, they had no idea that their machinations would end of unlocking one of the most perplexing mysteries of astronomy: how stars work.
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