When was the last time you went outside, looked up at the sky and said: “thank you stellar masses, please give me another”?
When was the last time you heard a porn star do the same thing?
If you haven’t sent a Valentine to has-beens like 1987A, then you probably don’t know where the material used to make your computer came from.
Grab a handful of sand
You can find silicon in a bevy of products in numerous industries. You can buy it in bulk and turn it into origami figurines. It is seemingly plentiful but where did it come from?
While you don’t necessarily need to enroll in a planetary formation course at the local college, few people can explain where metals like Si come from.
Believe it or not, but elements like gold that are found on earth didn’t form or grow on a tree. In fact, earth itself didn’t “grow” anything but rather was formed by the accumulation of particles.
Guess where these particles came from? Stars.
You see, stars like the Sun have a core made out of iron. The way the iron got to the middle is that it simply was the heaviest atom of the surrounding lot (e.g., Hydrogen, Helium). For instance, anyone that has thrown their brothers weight set into the pool will have observed that dumbbells sink. This is because the dumbbells are denser than water.
If you’ve ever been at the bottom of a big dog pile (who hasn’t?) you can feel the temperature in your body increase due in part to the pressure exerted on your corpus.
Similarly, based on spectroscopy you can see what kind of elements float around in stars like ours. Aside from nickel, iron is typically the heaviest element found in them (other types of stars have heavier elements, more on that later).
You see, as stuff begins to pile on top of the iron it becomes more compact and the resulting pressure continuously heats up the multi-million degree ball of plasma gooey stuff. This iron gets so incredibly hot that it can explode and fuse into other heavier elements, such as silicon.
That’s right. In order to create silicon you have to blow up a star. Because only then is there enough energy and heat to fuse together other heavier elements.
Don’t believe me? Well, remember little bombs like Castle Bravo or Tsar Bomba?
These were fusion explosions, which are essentially microcosms of stellar activity. In stars, peer pressure literally creates a ballistic explosion. As elements are squished together, the pressure becomes so great that the dorky high school dweeb and hot prom queen fuse together and release a crap load of energy. And in the process become a different, heavier element.
In the case of Castle Bravo, Lithium and Hydrogen deflowered one another. Actually, it was a menage a trois: 1 lithium and 2 hydrogen hooked up.
So now whenever you hear the word ’silicon,’ in addition to thinking of gigantic breast implants and/or iPods, thank your lucky stars.
See also:
How long did it take for the rings to form around Saturn?
Long distance phone calls in outer space
Are Half-Lives Legit or Just Something Sagan Liked?
Fighting debris with debris creates more debris
Intelligent Design and the Light-Year