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Freethought & Rationalism ArchiveThe archives are read only. |
03-19-2002, 12:58 PM
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#1 |
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OSU radiologist says sun is liquid, Big Bang theory wrong
<a href="http://www.dispatch.com/news-story.php?story=dispatch/news/news02/mar02/1149752.html" target="_blank">OSU radiologist says sun is liquid, Big Bang theory wrong</a>
I don't know anything about astrophysics, but I got my zoology degree at Ohio St., so this is a bit embarassing. |
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03-19-2002, 01:15 PM
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#2 |
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I think he is captitalizing on a bit of confusion caused by the popular description of stars as "burning balls of gas". In fact, they are neither gas, nor are they burning, so in a literal sense this is wrong. Molecular hydrogen and helium exist as gas under most conditions, therefore stars are refered to as being made of gas. Hydrogen in a star is not in gaseous form (it is probably too hot to be in a molecular form anyways). In the outer shell of a star hydrogen exists in a plasma state. Perhaps part of a star's hydrogen may exist as a supercritical fluid -that would be the closest to liquid you would get, but that is still not a liquid at all.
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03-19-2002, 01:31 PM
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#3 |
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I've heard that stars are actually tremendously huge explosions that take a profoundly long time (in our terms) to complete.
In other words, to personify for the sake of analogy, to a star, another star's entire "lifetime" would look like the explosion of a firecracker. |
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