3 ms·
"Research over the past 30 or so years has revealed that the formation of stars across the universe reached an extended peak of activity roughly 10 to 11 billio
by prawn 6y ago
"Research over the past 30 or so years has revealed that the formation of stars across the universe reached an extended peak of activity roughly 10 to 11 billion years ago."
"... it appears that the great majority of stars that the universe will ever make—perhaps 95 percent of them—have already been made."
Not sure it matters on human timescales, but still feels like we're late to the party.
- jodrellblank 6y agoSince heavier elements are made by stars, could we have been much earlier? How much earlier?
- jackcosgrove 6y agoNo one really knows how probable abiogenesis is. The fact that we are complex, sentient life forms within 13.8 billion years of the beginning of the universe seems improbable, especially considering that life on earth spent 2.5 billion years of its 4 billion year history as single-cell organisms. However the complexity of life appears to be accelerating. The earth is only 4.5 billion years old, so it only took 500 million years for life to form on earth, even less when you consider that the cooling of the crust was necessary.
- andi999 6y agoGood question. I remember that somehow we hafäd to go through at least 3 star creation/destruction cycles to get all our elements
- Tepix 6y agoLarge stars have a short lifespan
- macspoofing 6y agoWe're late to the star formation party, but super early in the black hole era.
- BurningFrog 6y agoFashionably late! We couldn't exist in the early Hydrogen/Helium only universe. The Universe had to go through a lot to accommodate us!
- millstone 6y agoOn the contrary, we are super early! We look up at the night sky and see tons of bright upper main-sequence stars like our Sun, destined to live for billions of years. But this is a fleeting early period, the first 0.1% of the stelliferous era. Red dwarf stars are both more numerous and long-lived, like 10 trillion years! And red dwarfs seem habitable? [1] So it's very surprising that we find ourselves orbiting an upper main-sequence star in a universe less than 15 billion years old. By chance the universe ought to be older and our star more common. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitability_of_red_dwarf_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitability_of_red_dwarf_syst...
- raxxorrax 6y agoIt would be interesting to check if M class stars actually can support habitable planets. Could significantly increase the lifespan of planets like earth. The article hints at problems in the process of early planetary creation. Although there was this Chinese sci-fi movie that I actually liked about putting giant boosters on the planet... don't remember the name, but I believe it was on Netflix. Aren't class G stars quite common? Not as common as class M perhaps, but I always though about the sun as being quite "normal".