Lighting the Stars

Since the 1930s astrophysicists have assumed that the million-degree-temperatures necessary to ignite stars would be produced during star formational from the gravitational collapse of dust and gas. But there are problems, serious problems. The mistake, made in the 1930s and built upon since then, was revealed in a scientific article published in the scientific literature in 1994. This is the story of stellar ignition.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• star
• stellar ignition
• thermonuclear fusion
• nuclear fission
• hydrogen bomb
• atomic bomb
• nuclear reactor
• star formation
• Jupiter
• Hot Jupiter

[AranFornost]

@MetalChef

and retepvosnul

Your concern is valid, but there is a way out if the first generation of stars were massive enough to ignite by accretion heat alone. Check out Wikipedia on Population III stars.

These stars would have produced all the elements up to iron through fusion, and then all the heavier elements, including actinids, during a helluva of a supernova/hypernova.

- Mike Hammer, Norway

[MetalChef]

Doesn't this create quite the problem? To ignite fission, you need fissionable materia. To get fissionable material, you need stars to die. For stars to die, they first need to be born and ignited etc. Or am i wrong?

[Terryzarzoff]

Wouldn't the dark stars still have mass? Therefore provide a lens effect on passing light from other stars. The dark stars should be plainly visible due to refraction, particularly in deep field realms.

[FIGHTFANNERD3]

interesting

[retepvosnul]

I'm perfectly willing to believe that spontaneous fission reaction in large gaseous bodies is possible. And maybe it can even provide the spark for long term nuclear fusion. But for this to be possible, these heavier elements had to be present from the get go. Fusion in stars can only produce elements up to, what , iron ?. How did the first stars ignite in the early proto universe that contained only the very lightest elements ? It had to ignite somehow, and would there for be possible