Michelle Hagen
Bio
Hi all! Blogger here! I use to love to blog all the time and have moved over to wanting to write articles! Follow me along on my journey here!
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How are stars born?
Stars are gigantic balls of fire holding planets asteroids and meteorites in their firm gravitational grip, and their fire sends light into the farthest reaches of their galaxies. But, how did they get here? I mean these incredible orbs must have come from somewhere right . What would it be like to witness this epic birth? What would it feel like at the center of the action, and why would this beautiful event have a funny smell. What if you saw a star being born. The Milky Way galaxy, spans about 100 000 light years across and it contains somewhere around 200 billion stars. If there are that many stars in our little section of space real estate, imagine how many there are in the entire universe! Now depending on where you look in the night sky you could see around 5000 Stars just with your naked eye. The brightest ones have melodic names like, Polaris, Alpha, Centauri, and Beetlejuice . Looking further out into the universe with the help of telescopes there are simply too many stars to name. That's the North Star well what is that, that's why many of these are now identified more generically like wasp 50 hd28678 and hat p23. But today you're not just going to look into a telescope and name some baby Stars, you're going to be in the thick of it, the hot dense thick of it. Every year seven new stars are born in the Milky Way alone. Now that might not sound like a whole lot but keep in mind that our galaxy is already used up 90 of its star making material over the billions of years of its existence, and yet new stars are still being born all the time. Now to witness their birth you need to travel to one of the many Star nurseries in the universe. These are known as nebulas . Nebulas are huge clouds of gas and dust that can span light years across. So hop into your Interstellar spacecraft and set your coordinates for one of the most famous Stellar nurseries of our galaxy. Okay so, I'm here 1344 light years away the Orion Nebula, yeah it's here that you'd find the necessary ingredients for a Star to be born. Gas dust, gravity, and turbulence sounds like my car being in the middle of a nebula would feel like being in the clouds. You'd be surrounded by over 200 different kinds of molecules. There would be hydrogen and helium gas as well as microscopic grains of silicon and iron, and I hope you packed some warm clothes because conditions In This Cloud would be frigid. You'd need a spacesuit thick enough to withstand temperatures as low as minus 270 degrees Celsius. But don't worry things are about to heat up suddenly. You'd be hit by a blast! This would be a ripple effect from an exploding nearby star and it would cause the nebula to become turbulent . All it means is that the gases around you would start to mix and swirl together, it would be the beginning of the Epic event you're here for. First dust particles would begin to Clump together these clumps would become denser and denser forming knots . Once these knots gain enough Mass they'd start to collapse under their own gravity , and their internal pressure and temperature would increase . Yeah at around 2200 degrees Celsius these high pressure knots would emit a dull red glow. You wouldn't be able to see it because that light would be infrared. Oh, but you would be uncomfortably aware of the temperatures starting to rise, and things would keep heating up. Eventually the Proto star before your eyes would emit its first rays of visible light wait, do you smell that? Well no of course you don't you're wearing a heat resistant spacesuit but , if you could you'd learn that this hot mass of dust and gas would also smell . It's disgusting but not necessarily in a bad way depending on the mixture of compounds around you, you could detect hints of sweetness lemon or even alcohol. But be careful your baby star wouldn't only be pulling things inward every now and then it would shoot powerful Jets from its poles at supersonic speeds. These would flash brightly as they come into contact with the surrounding gases . All the while the protostar would simultaneously grow and collapse under its own weight . This would make the core continue to heat up. Yeah once it reached the scorching hot temperature of 5 million degrees Celsius, you'd witness your baby star's first nuclear fusion deep within the center of the star, four hydrogen atoms would fuse together to form helium . This would release a ton of energy and with all that energy the protostar's pulsations would come to a halt. It would finally become a star. Now during the excitement of witnessing a star being born you'd have seriously lost track of the time. If the star that formed in front of your eyes was similar to our sun well you'd have just watched 50 million years fly right by you , and you might want to get your hearing checked. After experiencing all this of course there's no sound in the vacuum of space we all know that, but in the Stellar Nursery filled with gas and dust sound waves may have a medium to travel through and if you were wondering what the birth of a star sounds like well it would be deafening . If we could hear our own son it would be a lot like Earth was, covered and constantly wailing Sirens except multiplied by ten thousand . A new star created by a series of violent contractions of superheated gas forget about it . Okay now that your baby star is all stabilized it could burn bright for another 10 billion years maybe you'd also want to stick around for an extended vacation to see the end of its life?
By Michelle Hagen3 years ago in Earth
Your life without sleep
Wake up! Are you late again , sometimes we wish we never had to deal with this morning struggle, but what if you just never went to bed? What if you figured out how to keep yourself awake forever. How long could this sleeplessness forever last? Could you even be productive without recharging every night. When would your friends start telling you to get some rest, and what exactly would happen to your body. What would happen if you stopped sleeping? How often have you needed just a few more hours to finish off a project, get ready for a date or enjoy your day off. If you took sleep out of your daily routine you'd have all 24 hours of the day to do everything you never had time for. The amounts of projects and activities you could do, or get done. The time would seem endless if you ask me. Like a never ending clock that just keeps going 24 hrs- after 24hrs! What's a few yawns and some minor tiredness if it meant you never had to waste any more time lying in bed for no good reason. Turns out there are plenty of good reasons to sleep, and for me I would never want to waste my sleep! The average person spends 1/3 of their life lying in bed eyes shut snoring away. Sounds like a waste of valuable time, but not for your body while you sleep your body releases hormones and repairs tissues replacing your old cells with new lights. If you worked out that day you need a good sleep to let your muscles grow and your fat burn. So, what happens if you don't sleep. Not much at first after just 24 hours you'd feel completely fine in fact you'd feel better than fine that's because sleeplessness stimulates the mesolimbic pathway in your brain this pathway would release dopamine and you'd feel happy and full of energy, but don't be fooled by all that happiness it's not gonna last long. Soon after reaching the 24 hour mark all your reactions would slow down your brain would start to forget what you were doing outwardly you'd appear to be drunk. Wait where were we , right now what about two days of that sleep at that point. Your body would start shutting down. It would stop metabolizing glucose properly leaving you with no energy supply, you'd start looking very pale your eyes would turn red and then more bad news your wrinkles would become more visible on day three that's when the real fun begins. Hallucinations starved of REM sleep your brain would bring all your dreams and nightmares to life. And around the 72-hour mark you'd start breaking down your own protein that would affect your muscles, so say goodbye to all that muscle mass you've worked so hard to build up. Your body would keep using up all the energy sources, are confined glucose leftovers your muscles fat tissue after about two weeks your immune system would be so weak you could die from the common flu . Eventually three weeks after your last sleep you'd probably die of a heart attack. If you've got a little extra muscle or fat on your body you could stay alive just a bit longer but we don't recommend anyone try this at home. Anyway, so grab yourself a pillow and take a nap if it seems like you're always tired make sure you're getting the prescribed six to eight hours of sleep per night. I don't know about you but, I am not considering losing my sleep anytime soon.
By Michelle Hagen3 years ago in Humans
What If the World Lost Oxygen for Five Seconds?
Imagine if all the Earth's oxygen disappeared, not forever lets just for say five seconds, would we just hold our breath? What would happen to the atmosphere, what would happen to the environment just everything surrounding us? Here's what would happen if the world lost oxygen for just five seconds. Take a nice deep breath, are you holding it, feel how satisfying that is. What you're breathing in is oxygen and it takes up to roughly 21% of our atmosphere with 78% being nitrogen, although it's not the most abundant gas in our atmosphere it is the most important I would say. But, without oxygen plants animals water and us humans wouldn't be where we are today . Five seconds may not sound like a whole lot, even ten seconds of time to be without oxygen. Most of us can go at least thirty seconds without taking a breath so it would happen too fast for your body to even notice. Some of us even hold our breath with out even knowing it at times. Your breathing would actually remain normal, but as for everything else not so much. In just five seconds the earth would look completely different without oxygen. You can say goodbye to the Hoover Dam the Pantheon dome and anything else made of concrete these structures would instantly collapse. Crazy to think right? Oxygen acts as a special binding agent to concrete. Without it concrete is just dust in the wind. Speaking of buildings, any untreated metal would instantly be fused together, this is because there's a layer of oxidation on metals that prevents them from welding together. Without that layer metals would instantly bind to each other! All I can imagine is being in something metal at the time, who knows the out come that would bring! And If you happen to be relaxing at the beach at the time, hope you brought your sunscreen! Expect a severe sunburn, the ozone layer our protection against the sun's UV rays is made of oxygen, take away the oxygen and the earth would become extremely dangerous. There would be nothing protecting us from the sun's UV rays. Talk about a real day in the sun. In addition to a sunburn our inner ear would explode! Losing oxygen means losing 21% of our air pressure, a change in air pressure that drastic is equivalent to being at sea level and dropping down 2,000 meters instantly. Our ears wouldn't have enough time to adapt, and all that pressure would be very uncomfortable! Having a good time yet? well, don't expect it to last long without oxygen there's no fire. The combustion process and vehicles wouldn't be able to occur , any mode of transport that isn't electric will automatically fail. And watch out, because planes will fall from the sky and millions of cars will be stopped in their tracks. The sky would be completely dark before it hits the earth, light from the Sun bounces off multiple particles in the air, without oxygen in the atmosphere there are less things to bounce off and the sky will appear dark. Oh yeah, and while all this is happening the Earth's crust would completely crumble that's because Earth's crust is made up of 45% oxygen the crust would crumble and continue to crumble until there's nothing left! Sending you and everyone on the planet into a freefall. I guess its safe to say that it is not a survivable situation. Sound like fun? Probably not, but luckily you can take a deep breath of 21% oxygen knowing this will never happen.
By Michelle Hagen3 years ago in Earth
What if you were swallowed by a whale?
There is something lurking in the water do you see it ? Close calls like this happen with whales more often than you might expect. What would happen if you hadn't been so lucky, could a human body survive being swallowed by a whale? Has it ever happened before? And here's what would happen if you were swallowed by a whale. If you've never seen a whale up close it's hard to comprehend just how monstrous they can really be. To put it in perspective the blue whale is the largest animal on the planet its tongue alone weighs as much as an elephant and it can fit anywhere between 400 and 500 people in its mouth, but we wouldn't have to worry about one of these guys swallowing us anytime soon because their Anatomy makes it nearly impossible. Instead we should be more concerned with their smaller cousins sperm whales. In 1891 reports emerged that a man had been swallowed by one of these whales and although he lived to tell the tale, he would never be the same again. According to the story James Bartley was swallowed when a whale attacked his ship and he wasn't retrieved until the following day when the crew found and killed the whale. They quickly brought it on board their ship and cut it open revealing an unconscious but very alive James Bartley. His face and arms were bleached white and he was blind, all thanks to the stomach acids of the whale however, as the years went by people started poking holes in this story and questioned whether James had really been swallowed by a whale. I mean wouldn't the stomach acids do more damage than just bleaching his skin? Well, with the power of science we took a closer look and we quickly discovered that if you get swallowed by a whale coming back out with shiny white skin would be the least of your worries . So the first thing you'd have to worry about once you were swallowed would be getting shredded to pieces by the sperm whales impressive set of teeth. Each tooth is approximately 20 centimeters long that's about the length of an average chef's knife and whales have anywhere from 40 to 50 of these. Let's say you're lucky enough to make it past all of them, next you'd begin your descent down the throat not only would it be dark and slimy down here but you also find it hard to breathe due to the lack of oxygen and an increase in methane gas as the whales throat muscles constricted in and out to help force you down. You'd also start to feel hydrochloric acid beginning to eat away at your skin. I know what you're thinking we just got into this whale and James Bartley's story already seems pretty fishy? Well you're not wrong but what would be the fun in stopping now. So next you'd be dropped into the first and largest of the whales stomachs, you'd probably be in there for a while but on the bright side you might have some light in the form of a bioluminescent squid or tube being knocked on after your arrival . Sperm whales love neon flying squid you'd better enjoy this brief light show because after this you'd just be tossed from one stomach to the next with the acids breaking down almost all of your body until you're just a bunch of bones being unceremoniously ejected from the whale's rear end. So, yeah it's pretty safe to say that there's no way you could be swallowed whole by a whale and live to tell the tale, sorry James you may have been able to fool people in the 1890s but we're on to you. Now as vast as they are and as monstrous as they might seem to us whales actually have no interest in eating humans and if they could talk they would probably make a point of telling us that.
By Michelle Hagen3 years ago in Earth
Three requirements of a good relationship
Many people after they've been in a couple for some time will privately admit that they are in many ways frustrated and disappointed by the person they've chosen to share their lives with. If pressed for details they will have no difficulty coming up with a list of their partner they might complain is, too loyal to their irritating family or, doesn't share their views on the layout of the living room or, never wants to go on camping holidays or, plays tennis every Wednesday evening or doesn't share their enthusiasm for the same taste in music or, has a habit of adding actually, to every second sentence when it's actually redundant. As the list gets longer they sigh they still love their partner and they long to be happy together. It's just that it seems impossibly complicated to make this relationship work. What's driving the frustration is not that they've sadly fallen for an idiot as a partner it's rather that we have all inherited needlessly complicated ideas of what a relationship is supposed to be. We are told that love is meant to involve the almost total merger of two lives. We expect that a loving couple must live in the same house eat the same meals together every night share the same bed go to sleep and get up at the same time only ever have sex with or even sexual thoughts about each other regularly see each other's families have all their friends in common and pretty much think the same thoughts on every topic at every moment. It's a beautiful vision but a hellish one too because, it places an impossibly punitive burden of expectation on another human. We feel the partner must be right for us in every way and if they're not, has to be prodded and cajoled into reform but, there is another perspective relationships don't have to be so complicated and ambitious if we keep in view what in the end actually makes them fulfilling. If we boil matters down they might really just be three essential things that we want from a lover. Firstly, kindness. A partner who is gentle with our imperfections and can good humidly tolerate us as we are. Secondly, shared vulnerability. Someone with who we can be open about our anxieties worries and the problems that throw us off balance someone we don't have to put on a good front for, someone around whom we can be weak vulnerable and honest and who will be the same around us. Thirdly, understanding someone who is interested in and can make sense of certain obscure features of our minds our obsessions preoccupations and ways of seeing the world and who we are excited to understand. In turn if we have these three critical ingredients to hand we will feel loved and essentially satisfied , whatever differences then crop up in a hundred other areas. Perhaps our partners friends or routines won't be a delight but, we will be content just as if we lack these emotional goods and yet agree on every detail of things like, interior design and social existence. We are still likely to feel lonely, and by limiting what we expect a relationship to be about we can overcome the tyranny and bad temper that effects so many lovers. A good simpler yet very fulfilling relationship could end up in a minimal state. We might not socialize much together we might hardly ever encounter each other's families our finances might overlap only at a few points. We could be living in different places and only meet up twice a week , conceivably we might not even ask too many questions about each other's sex life. But when we would be together it would be profoundly gratifying because we would be in the presence of someone who knew how to be kind, vulnerable, and understanding a bond between two people can be very deep and important precisely because it's not played out across all practical details of existence by simplifying and clarifying what a relationship is. We release ourselves from overly complicated conflicts and can focus on our urgent underlying needs to be sympathized with seen and understood, deciding whether to stay in or leave a relationship is one of the trickiest and most consequential decisions .
By Michelle Hagen3 years ago in Families
What would happen if the world stopped spinning for 5 seconds?
Hang on! because we're about to screech to a halt , that's right the earth is going to stop spinning for five seconds. How much damage would this sudden stop cause, what would you experience in different parts of the world, and when the earth starts spinning again would it still be habitable? Here's what would happen if the earth stopped spinning for five seconds. The earth makes one full rotation on its axis in one day, this gives us day and night. The earth is spinning because of collisions that happened when the planet was forming 4.6 billion years ago as a huge disk of gas and dust swirled around the sun , dust and rock grains clumped together generating forces that kept the planet rotating in one direction. You could imagine it much like a figure skater spinning faster and faster and with almost no forces in space to slow the planet down, we keep rotating and we'll continue to for billions of years. But if the earth stopped on a dime would you fly right off the surface if the planet came to an abrupt halt the atmosphere would still be in motion, that means though everything has lurched to a stop powerful winds would continue to blow and these wouldn't be a strong breeze they would be many times stronger than any storm you've ever encountered. Now the strength of these winds would differ based on where you were on the planet at or near the equator the earth is rotating the fastest. Here you'd experience wind speeds of sixteen hundred and seventy kilometers per hour those winds would knock you off your feet. But forget about you these winds would be strong enough to tear up the earth's crust, so it wouldn't matter if you were out in an open field or inside a steel reinforced building these winds would obliterate you for context the strongest f5 tornadoes have velocities up to 511 kilometers per hour, and these storms can move houses off their foundations send cars flying, and even tear apart concrete structures. The winds from the earth's emergency brake would be three times stronger than that, so if the crust under your feet didn't crumble you and a lot of other stuff would likely go flying a great distance but not off the face of the earth. The escape velocity or the speed you need to escape the earth's gravitational forces and enter space is about 40 000 kilometers per hour. In other parts of the world like new Zealand or France you'd experience slightly weaker winds, but at 1180 kilometers per hour these would still be much stronger than any storm ever. These winds would pretty much destroy everything, but they wouldn't be the only hazard you'd need to keep an eye out for in these short five seconds our planet is not a perfect sphere it bulges near the equator due to the centrifugal forces generated by the planet's rotation, if the rotation stopped the earth would transform quickly into a perfect sphere all the water gathering near the equator would flow away toward the poles generating a massive tsunami five seconds later. When the planet returned to its full speed rotation that water would backtrack a wall of water would slam into everything and everyone twice, that's one heck of a storm maybe the only place you'd be safe in this scenario is near the north or south poles. Here the wind would be the mildest. Now you must be relieved to hear that the earth has returned to its normal rotation after all this but, like I said there would be nothing left on it every building all farmland and all technology would be demolished beyond recognition. Billions of people if not every single person on earth would die from the brute force of being slammed by the massive gusts of wind. So if you're looking to survive this apocalyptic scenario you'd better start building an underground bunker. Luckily it's expected the earth won't come to a halt any time in the next few billion years , and before that the sun would burn out and turn into a red giant!
By Michelle Hagen3 years ago in Earth
