Superstars on Space Mountain

Sorry, this post is not about celebrity spotting on Space Mountain in Disneyland.  It's very similar; but remarkably different as well.  In this instance, Space Mountain refers to Mount Stromlo in Canberra, and the stars refer to those twinkly, twinkly little things in the night sky. 

So a few nights ago I went star trekking up Space Mountain to attend a lecture on the twinkly little things, presented by one of the vastly intelligent peeps who work at the Mount Stromlo Observatory.  The Canberra Astronomy Society (CAS) run monthly presentations on various astronomy-type topics presented by various scientist types, in conjunction with their general meetings. 

I attended my first one last month on entropy, which I found thoroughly confusing, yet extremely fascinating.  Considering I'm not much of a first responder in a physics-type emergency, and considering the ins and outs of basic entropy did my head in for a couple of weeks, I bravely decided to travel up the mountain again.


A red dwarf



I feel like a grand fraud going to these talks. As if someone is going to notice and yell out, "she's only got an IQ of 17! Send her to the telescopes - off with her head!" But I can play along.  After the talk, when questions were asked of the presenter, I turned my head to the questioner, nodding and smiling in agreement, with one finger pointedly tapping my chin.

As it turns out, stars are far less confusing than entropy.  Once upon a time, about 14 billion years ago, there was a big bang, and everything went poof and there was craziness all over the universe (which may or may not be a very loose description of entropy).  Planets and stars and galaxies and other cool outer space stuff were causing a big brouhaha.  Now, I can't remember exactly how stars are formed, but they are mainly made up of hydrogen, and helium and a bunch of heavy metals.

Stars spend most of their life - or their main sequence - fusing hydrogen.  I don't remember why, but it sounds like quite a productive way to while away a couple of billion years.  It sure as hell beats working in the public sector.  This nuclear fusion is constantly pushing out, but gravity constantly pushes everything in.  So just like people really; except replace nuclear fusion with KFC.  Although, our gravity doesn't always work so well.  Perhaps we could replace hamburgers with nuclear fusion and end the so-called obesity epidemic. 

In their twilight years, usually when they are even older than Queen Elizabeth II, stars exhaust their supply of hydrogen and become red giants (sometimes) and start making iron, which sounds an awful lot like the biography of Donald Trump.  Apparently one teaspoon of red drawf can be as heavy as 10 billion tonnes, or something equally as weighty.  You would certainly need some strong and sturdy cutlery before you even think about venturing out there.  There are also white dwarfs, black dwarfs and many other colourful dwarfs in the great multicultural universe.   

Disclaimer: Astute observers and smart five-year-olds may have noticed, through various subtle references in my description of stars, that I have absolutely no idea of what I am talking about.  Which is a valid point, I imagine.  What do you expect - do I look like a friggin' scientist?  If you want to know more about stars, or be less confused, go read Wikipedia.