Hello!! I really liked how the first post I wrote on this topic turned out. I learned a lot and I also got some good feedback too, so I thought it’ll be fun to have a second part! Also, being completely honest, there are lots of things about space that are mesmerising, so one post was clearly not enough.
In my first post, I mostly spoke about stars. We looked at the size of our sun, the size of some of the biggest stars and what would happen when the sun died. I hope I remembered all that correctly. Lemme go cross-check real quick. Wait, no. I was wrong. We looked at pulsar neutron stars but we didn’t really look at what would happen when the sun died, so that’s a perfect segway into our first fact.
1.The death of the sun
Every star will eventually die. Our star, the sun, will also die. So how’s that gonna happen? Will we be alive when it happens? Will we survive after the sun dies? There’s no need to worry right now because the sun’s death will probably happen 5 billion years from now. That’s a relief! The sun will die once it starts to run out of its nuclear fuel, that is, hydrogen. As the sun loses its core, gravitational forces take over and compress the core while at the same time allowing the remaining part of the sun to expand. This will turn the sun into a red giant! As the sun runs out of its core, it will emit a lot of solar wind, which will be more than what earth’s magnetic field can take, so there’s a high chance that everything on earth would succumb even before the sun becomes a red giant. If, by some miracle something does survive, there’s still no point as the earth will be engulfed by the sun when it grows into a red giant, also eating up Mercury and Venus. After this happens the outer layers of the sun will keep expanding to form a nebula, as in, our red giant sun with explode. Much of the sun’s matter will be lost in the nebula. What is left behind will be a little white dwarf star. This is a star that doesn’t have nuclear fuel and will radiate its left over heat. In short, a peaceful end after a dramatic death. All is well, but we’ll be dead!
2. The birth of the moon
Okay so we talked about death, which is quite depressing and scary. Not to mention that the earth won’t exist anymore. So let’s move on to something more beautiful and nicer. Let’s talk about birth, because birthdays are waaaay more fun. When we look at human beings, birth is a very beautiful phenomenon. However, it isn’t smooth sailing and it’s very very painful and it takes a toll on a woman’s physical and mental health. So it was with the birth of the moon. I think we should realise by now that nothing happens without a huge explosion in space. The birth of the moon is quite a story to tell. Now there are different theories as to how the moon was formed. My favourite is the giant impact theory. Let’s look into it. The early solar system was a violent place, nothing like how it is today. All the planets were made by the leftover debris after the sun was born. The moon, however, was formed approximately 100 million years after the solar system was formed. How did that happen? According to the giant impact theory, there was a planet called Theia, which was about the size of Mars. Theia crashed into the earth creating a huge amount of debris of both the planets to be ejected into space. As time went on, this debris which was ejected into space came together to form our moon. Pretty cute ending right? The other theory of the birth of the moon, called co-formation theory states that the earth and the moon were formed at the same time during the creation of the solar system. The captured theory relating to the birth of the moon states that the moon was an object floating through space and was captured by the earth’s gravitational pull. My favourite theory, however, is still the giant impact theory. It's soo much more dramatic.
So that’s all the facts I have for you right now. I didn’t wanna make it too long and boring. I really like writing these, so I may make a few more parts. Let’s see how that goes.
Once again thank you for reading this far and I’ll see you soon. Bye!!
Link to part 1
