Thursday, April 22, 2010
Holy Hydrogen
(1)
I've come up with yet another mandatory link, a 'pro-science link' (face rad as I write this causing much mucus buildup but no sneezing yet). Sip. The Periodic Table of Videos has a blurb on tonight's subject. Water (H2O), as you know, is composed of Hydrogen and Oxygen. But did you know that most (if not all) the Hydrogen in your body was created in the Big Bang approximately 14.7 billion years ago? Yep. And since the human body is at least 70% water, that means that the Hydrogen component of your particular body is as old as The Universe itself. You are ancient! (At least the Hydrogen part of you is ancient.) What about the Oxygen part? Lesee... If I remember my Cosmology correctly, the Oxygen part of your body was created much later in the bowels of giant globes of glowing hydrogen (stars), which were so huge that the sheer pressure of gravitation heated the core to such high temperatures that the hydrogen began fusing into Helium. (Thunder as I write this. WHTZSNM is not pleased.) The Helium later fused into the heavier elements, as Hydrogen was depleted in the star's core. The process (Rolling thunder. Sip) continued up the chain of elements until Iron, at which point the star imploded, then exploded, scattering the Iron and the lighter elements (like Oxygen) out into the local stellar neighborhood, where Hydrogen and Oxygen eventually met and got married to form a Water molecule. The water molecule eventually found itself orbiting yet another star in the form of part of a carbohydrate molecule in your brain. (Could not contact Blogger) Carbon! What an element! You would not exist without Carbon! But the most ancient part of you is Hydrogen.
I've come up with yet another mandatory link, a 'pro-science link' (face rad as I write this causing much mucus buildup but no sneezing yet). Sip. The Periodic Table of Videos has a blurb on tonight's subject. Water (H2O), as you know, is composed of Hydrogen and Oxygen. But did you know that most (if not all) the Hydrogen in your body was created in the Big Bang approximately 14.7 billion years ago? Yep. And since the human body is at least 70% water, that means that the Hydrogen component of your particular body is as old as The Universe itself. You are ancient! (At least the Hydrogen part of you is ancient.) What about the Oxygen part? Lesee... If I remember my Cosmology correctly, the Oxygen part of your body was created much later in the bowels of giant globes of glowing hydrogen (stars), which were so huge that the sheer pressure of gravitation heated the core to such high temperatures that the hydrogen began fusing into Helium. (Thunder as I write this. WHTZSNM is not pleased.) The Helium later fused into the heavier elements, as Hydrogen was depleted in the star's core. The process (Rolling thunder. Sip) continued up the chain of elements until Iron, at which point the star imploded, then exploded, scattering the Iron and the lighter elements (like Oxygen) out into the local stellar neighborhood, where Hydrogen and Oxygen eventually met and got married to form a Water molecule. The water molecule eventually found itself orbiting yet another star in the form of part of a carbohydrate molecule in your brain. (Could not contact Blogger) Carbon! What an element! You would not exist without Carbon! But the most ancient part of you is Hydrogen.
