Abstract: This research paper dives into the nature of one of
creations greatest processes; the birth, lifespan, and death of the largest
stars known in the universe. Details are given about relevant theories
pertaining to these objects plus some of the new exciting discoveries that have
challenged the once majority opinions about massive star formation in our
universe. An effort is made to try to understand the amount of energy and sheer
size of these celestial bodies, and examine their role in a short million
years’ time within the grander scheme of the cosmos. Crucial to increasing our understanding
of these giant nuclear reactors is observing its behavior during the death
stages. The final death stage called a Hypernova is put into context compared
to other galactic explosions, and seeks to understand the process by which
these hypernovae create super massive black holes. Theories of black
holes/wormholes are investigated and what could be on the other side.
Hypergiants
Hypergiant
is the term applied to the most massive stars ever found. A typical Hypergiant
star will release as much energy in six seconds as our Sun will in a full year.
Because these stars release so much energy, their life-times are measured in
millions of years; a miniscule amount in the full scale of the universe. These
Hypergiants were originally considered to be between 100-150 solar masses of
stellar material [1]. This approaches what is known as, the Eddington Limit [2].
Arthur Eddington
The Eddington Limit or Eddington Luminosity is named
after an astronomer and scientific philosopher, Arthur Eddington [3]. Mr.
Eddington enjoyed a successful and prestigious career with a wide range of
work. Arthur assisted Albert Einstein verify his General Theory of Relativity
by photographing a total solar eclipse on May 29th, 1919; attempting
to see if the sun bent the light of distant stars. Eddington also did extensive
work in the area of philosophy writing a total of fifteen books and research
inquiries, including The Nature of the Physical World in 1928, Space Time and Gravitation:
Outlining the General Relativity Theory in 1920 and Philosophy
of Physical Science in 1939. In relation to these enormous stars Sir
Arthur gave us the aforementioned Eddington Limit. The Eddington limit is a theoretical
maximum of stellar mass; at this point the star, due to imbalance of gravity
and outward pressure, would become too unstable and eject large amount of its
materials, incapable of sustaining equilibrium. However as with most
astronomical theories, the Eddington Limit has been challenged by the discovery
of extremely massive stars. When calculating his hypothesis Arthur Eddington
only took into account electron scattering; since then new theories of star
formation have released and the Eddington Luminosity has been updated to
compensate for its inherent flaws.
R136A1
One of the problems with even the updated Eddington
Limits is the increasing frequency of new discoveries of massive stars, like R136a1
found in the Tarantula Nebula. News of the discovery of this super-massive star
was first published in July of 2010. After observing this monstrous star,
astronomer Raphael Hirschi commented “Its high mass would reduce the
length of the Earth's year to three weeks, and it would bathe the Earth in
incredibly intense ultraviolet radiation, rendering life on our planet
impossible,” [4]. This star is estimated to be at least 265 solar
masses and was born at 320 solar masses; at just a little over a million years
old R136a1 is well into the later stages of its life cycle, having shed over 50
solar masses of energy. Astronomers do not understand this rapid shedding of
mass very well but have documented this mass loss consistently among these
amazingly large celestial bodies. R136a1 is also the most luminous star ever
discovered over 8,700,000 times brighter than our Sun. If it were in our solar
system it would outshine our Sun the way the Sun outshines a full moon. There
has been some speculation that R136a1 could actually be a binary star system
but no supporting evidence of that claim has been presented.
VY Canis Majoris
Though R136a1 is the
most massive star ever discovered it is not the longest in diameter ever
discovered. That title belongs to an enormous star known as VY Canis Majoris
named after the constellation of its residence Canis Majoris. VY Canis Majoris
is a red hypergiant like the star Betelgeuse; the first documented observation of
this star was on March 7th, 1801 by a man named Jérôme Lalande. When we observe this star it has a massive
surrounding area of ejected stellar material, encircling it like a death
shroud. Because of the billions of tons of material being ejected every day
this star is extremely volatile VY Canis Majoris is deep into its life cycle
and has gotten to the point, where it has massively expanded. VY Canis Majoris only has 13.21% of the mass
of R136a1, though it is hundreds of times larger. VY CM’s radius was estimated
by University of Minnesota professor Roberta M. Humphrey’s to be 1800-2100
solar radii, and would take about 228,831,216 suns to fill the entire volume of
this star [5]. This has been an issue up for debate though; some opposing
astronomers believe VY Canis Majoris is a normal red supergiant of about 600
solar radii. This could possibly explain VY Canis Majoris mass deficiencies of
between 30-40 solar masses of material. But the way these two stars are born
are two very different processes.
Hypernova
Both of these stars
could explode at any moment in a fantastic way called a Hypernova.
Interestingly enough, the first evidence of hypernova explosions were stumbled
upon by accident. During the Cold War, the United States sent satellites into
space to detect any gamma radiation to see if the Soviets were trying to get a
leg up in the arms race. They did find radiation but realized that it was
coming from the depths of the cosmos and not Russia [6]. Also this radiation
far exceeded that of normal supernova bursts let alone the capabilities of the
Russians. After a decade or so of searching astronomers found these massive
burst were coming from the direction of once massive stars. Some
astronomers contradict this discovery by saying it wasn’t necessarily a
hypernova but the satellites picked up direct radiation out of the beam from a
supernova. Regardless, when a star like R136a1 explodes in the relatively near
future it will likely explode with the most energy ever recorded the power of
over 100 supernovae. These hypernovae have the ability to convert chunks of
matter larger than the sun into electromagnetic radiation almost instantly.
These events are significantly rarer than normal supernova blasts; only an
estimated five hypernova blasts happen in our galaxy in a million years’ time
[7].
Gamma Ray Bursts
When these massive
explosions happen a gamma ray burst is released. As the star begins to run low
on its fuel for nuclear fusion, the collapsing pressure of gravity starts to
out muscle the outward pressure of said nuclear fusion. This massive star then
becomes exponentially more volatile and forms a black hole at its core where
density and gravity become infinite. The black hole then begins to cannibalize
its outer layers and in one mighty hiccup releases unimaginable amounts of
energy in the form of a gamma ray burst. These gamma ray burst release more
energy in one second than the Sun would in 100 of its 10 billion-year
evolutionary cycles. Two beams of gamma radiation shoot out from each pole
while the rest of the star explodes, these two beams will race out through
space for a few seconds obliterating anything in its path. If there were a star
like this close enough to hit Earth it would blow out our atmosphere into deep
space and vaporize our entire planet before we ever knew what hit us.
Thankfully there are none of these monsters anywhere near our solar system.
Black Hole Birth Everywhere!
In 2004, NASA released the Swift Probe; this
probe scans the universe in search of these gamma ray bursts. Because a gamma ray burst is generally the
death of these rare hypergiant stars results weren’t expected to be
groundbreaking or immediate. One can imagine how surprised not only the people
at NASA but the entire astronomical community was when this probe was detecting
and gathering information about a new gamma ray burst every day [8]. The
implications of these discoveries shook the entire perception of astronomy to
its core for a few key reasons. First, the fact that we were gaining new
information everyday about the type of events that happen only five times in a
million years in our galaxy is incredible for understanding the formation of heavy
elements. It also gives us a new way of thinking about the scale of the
universe if these events are only happening five times in a million years in any
one galaxy; yet we are detecting new bursts from a limited range of detection
from deep space each day. Lastly, and most importantly this gives us a clear
cut way of finding new black holes since these bursts are their signatures of
birth. We could also possibly use this information to estimate the total amount
of black holes within this universe.
Wormholes: Time Travel or
Dimensional Travel?
These new black
holes, like the stars that created them, are immensely massive. Because mass is
directly linked to gravitational force the gravitation attractions of the black
holes are incredibly strong (strong enough to form galaxies). When something is
pulled into the inner strong fields of the black hole it would begin condensing
any form of matter to the point of slowing down time itself on the path to the
crunch at the singularity [9]. This center of infinite gravity is a natural
time machine, it can crush space and time together but it can never destroy the
energy that gets pulled through the singularity. Thus came Stephen Hawking’s
theories of wormhole time travel, which very well could be; but it is also
possible that these black holes are gateways up the 11-dimensions of reality,
proposed by M Theory [10]. Another idea to consider is because all forms of
matter are vibrational information; it’s possible these black holes send us
through the base frequency of this reality to another frequency. As mentioned
earlier, time is manipulated by these immense forces, but the questions that
arise are what exactly is time and how can it be objectively measured?
Time Measurement Paradox
Here on Earth we
measure astronomical time in years; for example the mainstream belief is that
our sun is approximately 4,570,000,000 years old. So the question becomes what
is a year? Well, a year is the Earth making a full rotation around the sun or
365.25 days. A day is one rotation on Earth’s axis. Earth is about 24,900 miles
in circumference ; a day on Earth is 24-hours. In an hour the Earth rotates
about 1,000 miles. The point being that we base all our measurements of time on
cycles of our Earth and solar system, which are experiences of the human
consciousness. If these black holes are really gateways to distant points of
space and time there would be no discernible way of truly knowing whether you
went forward or backwards in time, even if one ran into a planet that sustains
life. One thing that is reasonably certain is that if these black holes really
are worm holes it wouldn’t be time travel back to our own planet. Because space
and time are interwoven if you make a radical jump in space you must make a
radical jump in time and vice versa.
A Holographic Universe
But what’s more poignant
is these vibrational fields put off by these supermassive black holes are much
more than just a gravitational field. These black holes create entire galaxies.
The base frequency sent out stimulates star birth in the interstellar clouds,
the stars composition is based on the materials in these clouds that originated
in a super or hypernovae explosions. The type of star born whether, large and
blue or small and yellow like our Sun then dictates through photon energy what
kinds of life, organic carbon-based or other ways we don’t know are possible,
may be able to develop by its energy powering through the solar system.
Quantum Physics has
proved this physical reality is made of atoms. The Atom is over 99.99% empty space,
and the particles within the atom resonate at a certain frequency giving off
energy fields that are decoded by the brain to project an apparently solid
world [11]. Even the actual parts like
the nucleus and electrons are made of smaller parts like neutrinos and quarks. The
harder we try to grasp the elementary particles and understand how they create
“solid” objects the more holographic and abstract these building blocks become,
and we miss the plot line. Ultimately, it is a philosophical revolution that
will connect us to the true nature of multi-dimensional reality. Science can
only lead so far down the rabbit hole of understanding because of the state of
the scientific method we need to be able to observe our theories. But when we
understand that our bodies only decode small fractions of the electromagnetic
spectrum; everything is the same form of energy vibrating at different
frequencies, in the end it’s the same consciousness that manifests the same
vibrational fields in such vastly different states.
The true reality of
the universe is that of a living, self-sustaining, cyclical being, we are all
droplets within that infinite being. We
see the entire universe in endless parts, like galaxies, stars, planets, quasars,
asteroids. Look in the mirror and I see arms, legs, nose, ears, fingers, toes,
and individual strains of hair. Then scientist look through a microscope and
see organs, cells, tissue, DNA, nuclei, atoms, electrons, neutrinos, and
quarks. What we are experiencing is because all of this indestructible energy
is conscious, wherever the consciousness
explores it will find itself looking directly back at consciousness. No matter
where we go, no matter what happens we are always observing and affecting the
energy fields around us. Which means, like the title of Stephen Hawking’s new
book The Dreams
That Stuff Is Made Of implies; the energy fields released through the vehicle of the body
dictated by our attitude are fundamental to creating this reality. We can look
out into our world and see all the infinite amount of divisions. But dividing
an infinite realm by an infinite amount of parts comes back to One. We are all
the free-willing children of that infinite being, and we are one with all
creation; there is no such thing as death because energy never dies and it is
the core of all being. The only choice needed to be made is whether we want to
live in a dense vibrational state of stress, fear, and resentment or the
highest state of our being which is, always has, and will always be love,
compassion, and understanding. A simple choice, then again isn’t that the story
of life?
