Stars are like factories which produce heavy elements. Without them we wouldn't exist. Can anyone explain?

Answer 1

When the Universe began in the Big Bang, the only elements to exist in any quantity were hydrogen and helium. Since planets, life, and technology require elements much heavier than these two, the universe would've been a boring place were it not for stars.

All stars initially get on by fusing hydrogen into helium. We don't care about the low and medium mass stars, since the heavier elements they create (carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and the like) remain locked up in their corpses after they become white dwarfs. Where the action is at is in supermassive stars.

Supermassive (at least 8 - 11 times Sol's mass) stars run through their hydrogen in a few tens of millions of years. Then they bloat up, fusing helium into carbon, carbon into oxygen and neon . . . all the way up to iron, at which point the star runs out of time, since fusing iron absorbs, instead of produces energy. At which point, the star explodes in a supernova scattering elements up to the atomic mass of iron into interstellar space, and generating elements up to the mass of uranium through a process known as supernova nucleosynthesis.

As a result, everything one sees, from people to planets, are the byproducts of supernovas of eons past.

Answer 2

After the big bang, there were no elements over a certain "proton weight" or proton number. I believe it was all hydrogen, helium, and perhaps some Lithium.
Stars, through fusion, turn hydrogen into helium and then successively higher elements until you get to carbon, iron and lead and on. Then the stars blow up in novas and spread those elements throughout their galaxy.
With only gases, no life can form. Stars allow for life by making these elements.

Answer 3

After the big bang, there was only helium, hydrogen and some lithium. As stars went through their lifetime, iron, oxygen and some of the other elements were formed. The elements that are heavier than iron were formed in supernova explosions. Without the explosions, we might not exists.

Answer 4

Our star is forming helium out of hydrogen. Massive stars (and our star when it becomes a red giant) are forming the elements up to iron, #26. When a massive star explodes, the heavier elements like gold, lead, uranium, silver, copper are formed.

Answer 5

My astronomy professor explained it like this in order to produce something it must come from something. Did you know that all life is made up of what is essentially stardust as old as the creation of time? We contain in our bodies the very substance of stars as old as time, along with our own created organic selves. Pretty amazing, huh? Each human is basically recycled back into the universe over and over again. Which is why I think reincarnation is very possible. As a person dies they release their energy back into space to be recycled and reused as well as there former bodies like ashes to ashes dust to dust. We are basically energy, as that is what our mind is. It's pretty cool to think our energy is floating around after our death and may have the ability to come back in human form over and over again provided the conditions are right.

Answer 6

Our sun is one of billions and billions of stars in the universe. It is constantly combining hydrogen atoms to form helium atoms releasing tremendous amounts of energy in the process. This is called nuclear fusion. Other larger stars produce heavier elements because of the tremendous gravity.

Answer 7

I'm a believer in GOD and we would have existed with or without stellar nursery's(star factories).

I

Answer 8

We need natural elements like oxygen to live.