The Genesis and Demise of Celestial Stars: A Cosmic Journey
Stars have a life cycle that mimics the human life cycle, as they go
through their lives in childhood, youth, aging and death[1].
Stars are born from the accumulation of hydrogen atoms in the intergalactic
cosmic nebula, which is a cosmic dust consisting mainly of hydrogen and a
little percentage of helium atoms.
Hydrogen atoms accumulate in the nebula under the effect of their own
mass gravity, which increases over time until a certain threshold leading to a
rise in hydrogen temperature that permits the accumulated hydrogen to start
nuclear fusion reactions. The nuclear fusion of hydrogen in the cosmic nebulae
leads to the birth of stars.
This fusion is the source of the enormous heat that these stars,
including our sun radiate. We could thus consider our sun as an enormous
nuclear reactor that produces energy, leaving helium as a by-product of the
ongoing nuclear reactions.
Helium resulting from the reaction gradually accumulates in the
nucleus of the sun or any new-born star because it is denser than hydrogen,
thus increasing the gravitational forces in the nucleus over time, the nucleus
temperature rises to about (100) million degrees Celsius accordingly, at which
point helium itself begins to re-enter nuclear fusion reactions in which it
transforms to other heavier elements, such as oxygen, carbon and neon.[2] The
temperature at which helium begins the nuclear reaction is called Helium Flash.
The increased helium fusion reactions result in massive temperature
increase driving the outer star's layers surrounding the nucleus to occupy a
million times larger space than its initial size, transforming the star to the
so-called Red Giant, which remains a few million years as such, until the
reactions at the Centre of the star run down, leaving a relatively cold
shrinking nucleus called the White Dwarf, while the outer layer of the star
scatters in space.
In about five billion years, our sun will become a red giant,
swallowing the planets closest to it, Mercury, Venus, and possibly Earth,
eventually leaving a white dwarf with a diameter equal to the diameter of the
Earth and a mass slightly lower than that of the sun. This is also the fate of
stars that approach our sun in mass[3].
The Holy Qur’an poignantly describes the sun’s tragic end in Surah At-Takwir, verse 1, stating: “When the sun is wrapped up.”
What Earth will look like when the sun begins to swell and to swallow nearby planets
But what about stars that are more massive than our sun? We now know
that the nuclear fusion of helium in the nucleus resulted in the formation of
other elements such as oxygen, carbon, and neon. Because these elements are
heavier than helium, their accumulation in the nucleus causes it to overheat
again, to around (2,300) million degrees Celsius.
The elements mentioned above then begin to merge in nuclear
reactions, releasing enormous amounts of energy while transforming into heavier
elements such as titan, chrome, and manganese up to iron, but stop reacting
when they reach the threshold production of heavier metals than iron, because
producing these heavy metals would require a greater amount of energy than the
star's dramatic collapse or nuclear reactions could produce. During this phase,
the star is influenced by two opposing forces: the first, caused by nuclear
reactions, works from the star's nucleus to the upper layers; the second,
caused by the star's mass gravity, works in the opposite direction (from the
star's surface to the nucleus); this second force increases in proportion to
the star's initial mass. If the star's nuclear forces overcome gravitational
forces, it becomes a supergiant that soon explodes in a raging explosion that
matches the lighting of 100 million suns like ours.
This phenomenon is known as a supernova, and it can last for several
weeks. In 1054, the Chinese observed such a phenomenon, which lasted a few
weeks and was visible to the naked eye at night for several months until the
scenery gradually faded. The tremendous heat produced by this blast creates
many other metals heavier than iron, such as cobalt, nickel, copper, and other
heavy metals, which are scattered away from the Centre of the explosion
throughout cosmic space and may occasionally appear in the Earth's sky as iron
meteors and other heavy metals.
The remnants of the star's explosion shrink in the direction of its
nucleus, attracted by its own gravity, and continue to shrink to the limits
allowed by the star's initial mass. If the star's initial mass is between 8 and
20 times that of the sun, it will continue to shrink until it crushes the atoms
on themselves: negative electrons and positive protons will lose their charges,
and only neutral particles will remain as neutrons. This type of star is known
as a neutron star.
Neutron stars are the smallest and densest known stars, with
diameters of about 10 kilometers and masses up to 1.4 times that of the sun.
Neutron stars are not luminous, but their positions in the sky can be
easily identified because they rotate at high speeds around their axis,
transmitting electromagnetic waves in the form of pulses that are very
accurate, even more accurate than atomic clocks, which is why they are also
known as pulsars.
Neutron stars travel in
space, making hammering sounds, and sweep all the cosmic dust and other
physical objects in their path with the effect of their enormous gravity,
acting like a vacuum cleaner capturing cosmic dust and other physical blocks
scattered in space. Advanced radio (audio) observatories have been
able to capture electromagnetic waves from neutron stars and record sounds that
are heard just like hammering[4].[5]Some
neutron stars rotate around themselves at a staggering speed of more than 700
rotations per second, i.e., at a small fraction of the speed of light.
The Holy Quran provides an astonishingly accurate portrayal of neutron stars in Surat At-Takwir, verses 15 and 16, describing them as “the stars that recede but sweep away all that comes in their course.”
What if the initial mass of the star was more than 20 times that of the sun? In this case, the gravitational forces will become so intense that they can continue to press neutrons, overcoming all the opposite forces, so that the star continues to collapse until its natural dimensions fade, i.e. until it creates a hole in the dimensions of the natural world (in space-time), becoming an insightful star, the hole left by such a star is called a black hole, also named so because even light can’t escape out of its great gravity. The black hole leaves only a black spot in the sky, surrounded by a hot disk of a super-temperature material of millions of degrees Celsius; once a physical object approaches the threshold of this disk, it will never be able to turn back, it will enter an area outside time and space, it will enter another world not governed by the laws of nature, this area is known as the event-horizon.
The black hole swallows all celestial bodies coming close to its event horizon, even the largest stars; when these stars fall into the black hole, they emit x-ray waves that resemble distress sounds, from which space scientists sometimes infer the locations of black holes.
The Holy Qur’an eloquently describes a black hole in Surah At-Tariq, verses 1, 2, and 3, as a star that creates a hole in space-time, which is indeed the reality. The sounds emanating from its location are likened to the knocking of a visitor seeking help at night:
“By the heaven and the Night Knocker (1) And what can make you know what is the Night Knocker? (2) It is the piercing star. (3)”
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