Section 5 - The Birth of the Solar System

If you say “galaxy,” you are referring to:

A large, gravitationally bound conglomeration of many billions of stars, dust, gas, and other assorted matter

99% of the Universe is composed of atoms of:

Hydrogen and Helium

Organic molecules, alcohols, acids and bases, the building blocks of simple sugars, amino acids, peptides, and other “ingredients” considered the building blocks of life can be found in the environment of deep space (outside of the Solar System and not on Earth or one of the other planets/asteroids). True or false?

True, the cold, dense environment of molecular clouds allows some low mass atoms to bond with one another by chance encounter and thus create complex chains of molecules

A nebula is:

A cloud of gas

As compared to an H II region, an H2 region is:

Colder, denser, and darker

What two word phrase does “proplyd” stand for?

Protoplanetary disk

If you could travel back in time and watch the Sun begin the earliest stages of its formation, what kind of gas cloud would you look inside?

A molecular cloud

H II region is another name for which feature:

Ionized hydrogen clouds

At appropriately balanced temperatures and internal weights, gaseous bodies will remain stable and maintain their shape and volume. However, an outside disturbance can upset this delicate balance and lead to a failing of the pressure/gravity balance and is known as a "Jeans Instability" after the physicist who predicted the phenomenon, Sir James Jeans. Where would you guess Jeans Instabilities can often be found?

In molecular clouds beginning a gravity driven collapse

“Dense cores” describe:

The small clumps of cold gas blobs inside of molecular clouds

Your bones are made of calcium, magnesium, oxygen, and phosphorus; your phone has circuits consisting of silver, copper, gold, and palladium; the planet you’re standing on consists of silicon and oxygen rock wrapped around a core of iron and nickel. Where did all of these heavy elements come from?

They were cooked inside of the core of a large star and blasted into space in a titanic explosion that destroyed the star

A protostar becomes a true star at which point:

When core fusion begins and energy generation starts

What supports the Sun against collapsing under its own weight?

Radiation pressure in the form of photons

The Sun’s core likely contains a large amount of helium (with perhaps half of the core composed of helium atoms), more helium than was present when the Sun was a young star. Where did all of the Sun’s core helium come from?

The fusion process has compressed core hydrogen atoms together into helium atoms

Where is the Sun’s energy generated?

Most of the energy comes from the deepest layers of the small core

If a star is labeled as a T-Tauri type star, what outstanding feature does it demonstrate?

An extremely powerful stellar wind

Which of the following was likely a critical component for your existence?

All of the above were pretty critical

Nestled between the orbits of Neptune and Saturn is this object:

Caelus

The most distant thing in the Solar System - where just beyond this region you are well and truly in interstellar space free of the gravitational influence of the Sun (which, from this distance, is only about as bright as the planet Jupiter on a clear night) - is called:

The Oort Cloud