Got a quick question....

Soooo....

I was just thinking last night, while I was trying to go to sleep:

Are new stars formed all the time? Are they recycled? Energy (supposedly) cannot be destroyed, yet the Sun is supposed to run out after a trillion years or so (not before swallowing the entire solar system). Is there not going to be a point in time where ALL stars run out of energy? whats going to happen then?

Food for thought...

I'm not the most knowledgeable on this subject, but I do believe new stars are formed all the time. But I'm sure there would be a point in time when new stars stop being created in a Galaxy and eventually the whole Galaxy would die out. I'm sure that would take a long long time though.

[edit on 12-6-2006 by jra]

yes you are correct that new stars are constantly being formed all the time. There have been many areas within our own galaxy and in some other sectors that appear to be star forming areas. These areas are large gasseous areas that are brought together from debris floating about to a single concentration point via graviational pull. I guess the most interesting part is what happens when star formation ceases. Does the galaxy float around until collapsing into another galaxy and eventually the whole universe collapses creating another chain reaction that spurs another 'big bang'? The answer is we just dont know but we are damn sure trying to find out. But think about this, what would we do when we have found out what happens, essentially we have found the meaning of life and if we find that our existence is futile then what would be the point in carrying life on? There would be none. My theory is that we will never find all the answers that we require on our quest for information as we do not have the time. By the time we verge on a breakthrough of substantial amount our sun will wither and die and therfore so will we (this is accepting the fact that we have not killed our own planet yet) unless we move. This is why this is such an interesting fact.

Im sorry if I have wondered off topic a little because its in the early hours of the morning and my mind is wandering.

Wow, I don't think I've ever seen a thread hijacked so quickly, in so many ways...

Originally posted by Shadowbear
Wow, I don't think I've ever seen a thread hijacked so quickly, in so many ways...

I somehow missed the hijacking.


But yes, stars are forming all the time.
Here's a fairly famous picture of the Eagle Nebula, an active stellar nursery.



All the heavy material that makes up the planets, and even what makes up your body was created inside a star that exploded.

entropy is the key-word

If i remember good " every system that is excited would come in a quiet state
where there is no more energy"...

in others words in the future, stars, galaxies,and other objects would
die because the lack of energy, only few particles would remain or few
black holes "wreckage"... if and only if our actual theories are right.

The Orion Nebulae is also a region of star formation. I think most Nebulae are such regions no? Thats what the word means, no?

To answer your question, in part, stars are still being formed (Rather, they were forming however many thousand years ago depending on the lightyear distance from us) all around us, as the previous posters pointed out.

When a star goes supernova, remnants of the star are blasted out into space (GIS for 'Supernova Remains'. Barring collapse into a black hole, these remains, these new nebulae, may in theory coalesce with other nebulae after thousands, if not millions of years of gravitational tugging, creating a new Star Nursery*.

What this post is all about, though, is that Stars are simply gigantic fusion engines. As such, they have some loss in their operation. Feel that heat on your shoulders? That is a form of radiation emitted by our star, and our star emits radiation in all spectrums*. The star emits this radiation, the mass of the star is transformed into radiation, and the radiation bounces around space for untill it interacts with a mass. What I'm saying, in a roundabout way, is that the majority of every star is eventually lost to radiation, which will not be recovered into a new star, unless we create a solar-powered star generator. Unlikely. BUT. Over the course of our universe, everything that can be turned into a star will do so, untill it is all lost into background radiation. At that point our universe will be, in as many words, dead.

*Also known as Academic Guesswork, I don't have anything to back this up. Especially the first statement. Just sorta logic-driven.

in the middle of our galaxy, there are a lot of black holes. they consume, then grow. eventually they will will suck everystar into it. i wish i could be around when that happens, it will be a very fun ride