Blogpost 4: Stars

Little bright pointed things up there in the sky that we have been seeing in our entire lives. They're the most beautiful things that we were liking to see every night since our childhood. Some people even said that we are made of  them, made of "starstuffs." Could that be possible? Well, we might not know the answer. Why are they so visible to the naked eye? Even though they're millions of light years away from us? It's because they're the brightest things ever existed. It's thanks to them because they are the ones which light up the universe, without them I can imagine the possible darkness in space.

Stars has it's own gravity, and they're sphere like shapes like the planets. Scientists also estimated about "ten billion trillion"(10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000), stars are present in space. But did you actually know in this present time that the stars now aren't producing that much anymore? There's an article I've read entitled, Amid Cosmic Fatigue, Scarcely a Star is Born by Dennis Overbye from nytimes.com, it says here that the stars in our present time are dying, plus, we're not making new ones. An astronomer named David Sobral of Leiden University even said, "You might say that the universe has been suffering from a long. serious crisis: cosmic G.D.P. output is now only 3 percent of what it used to be at the peak in star production." But it also says there that we don't need to worry, because stars can live up to million or billion of years. And also, we should at least be happy because they stated that it means the universe had already made 95 percent of star mass. Who knows what good might happen when it comes to 100? Well, of course when a star crisis might happen, we're surely dead by that time. They said that it's very different when the early protogalaxies were made, before they we're like popping, colliding, and merging and they were producing many bright new stars. But now, like they said, it's not anymore productive than before. For the time being, they still haven't solved the mystery of why are stars declining its production. They would also say that the universe would be darker if other stars died, then others won't produce.

For me, I wouldn't like that kind of situation. Moreover, I don't like seeing much darkness at night. Because losing stars can really produce darkness. Feeling sad? I think many of us won't. It's because stars can still be seen whether they're getting older. Or, it's not our business if it isn't reproducing anymore.


There is also an article I've read still about the "star declining it's making" issue entitled, The Universe Is Almost Done Making Stars written by Rebacca Boyle from popsci.com. Well, they said that the stars back then 11 billion years ago when the universe has just been made, the stars were forming very rapidly, imagine them like popping popcorns in the sky. Then eventually figured out that the stars creation today are "30 times lower" than the past billion years. Or, they said that it may even not increase anymore after some years. The team of an astronomer David Sobral observed these by taking pictures, they've somehow seen it from the stars sizes from the other old ones. To say it specifically, all of the stars back then just formed for 2 billion years. But now, only half of then formed for about 9 billion years. There really is a big difference since then. Of course 2 billion years of making is very far to 9 billion. They also added that only 5% of stars will only be added in space even if we wait forever. David Sobral also stated after his discoveries that:

"We are clearly living in a universe dominated by old stars. All of the action in the universe occurred billions of years ago,"  -David Sobral

So I guess after a million years, people would be living with old stars. Well, who knows? Maybe a miracle in space would happen someday? At least these beautiful things can last for almost forever, I really think I shouldn't be sad or anything.

Knowing that the production of stars are almost done, It doesn't really gave an impact to the life here on Earth, because we exaclty don't know what's the consequence of those events. But let's be thankful that we are still seeing these wonderful creation in our night sky.