Among the Stars Essay

Submitted By kbe1999
Words: 1410
Pages: 6
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Among the Stars

Shoot for the moon, even if you miss you’ll land among the stars. Whoever thought up this inspirational quote obviously had no logic behind it. The interesting thing is though, it is used everywhere: billboards, posters, paintings, and even pieces of literature. People love the idea of going for gold, but falling short and having to accept silver or bronze. Which is a little morbid. Why would one set a high for themselves and then stop just short? But there is the irony. The moon, in this case, is implying the individuals goals. The moon is 384,400 km away from earth, whereas the nearest star, Alpha Centauri A, is nearly 4.22 light years away. Technically if one were to set their expectations on ‘the moon’ but then landing among the ‘stars’ they would have acceded their original goal by billions and billions of miles. Therefore this simple phrase, shoot for the moon, even if you miss you’ll land among the stars, is really saying if you set standards for yourself you might find yourself above and beyond them. Sometimes one must to look past what someone is saying to find the real meaning, just like stars. If one were to look at the stars, they might observe the smallness of that star, which appears to be just in grasp of the viewer. You wouldn’t be able to see something if it wasn’t close right? Wrong. Stars such as Alpha Centauri A and its sister Alpha Centauri B, which are not only light years away from our solar system, but are also gigantic in size. So even in their appearance, stars seem to have cheated the logicality of the simple minded average person. Stars incase secrets out of this world, such as the production of Hydrogen, Magnesium, and Iron and tons of other elements one might just find on a large poster hanging in the front of their chemistry classroom. Stated above, is the fact that stars produce Hydrogen. This is actually false. Stars don't generate anything; they chemically alter one thing to make another. Actually this chemically altering can be divided up into classes or stages. The first stage being, well, Hydrogen, but to understand the first stage of a star one must fully know what Hydrogen actually is. Hydrogen is the first element on the periodic table, located at the furthest left top corner, categorized with the reactive gasses. Some characteristics of this naturally occurring element include the lightness of the gas, it is the most abundant of all elements, is extremely flammable, and is mostly used for processing fossil fuels and in the production of ammonia. The atomic weight of Hydrogen is 1.00794 explaining the “lightness” of the element and because of its natural occurrence it is easily classified as the most abundant. The simplicity of a single Hydrogen atom makes it easier for atoms to react with it, which leads to the nickname the atom earned, the Building Block. It has only one nucleus, one shell, and one electron. With the atomic symbol of H, Hydrogen makes up 90% of the universes atoms. All stars start off as a burning ball of Hydrogen. So every star out there when one looks up at night, was once nothing but a big ball of Hydrogen. But keep in mind, when an individual does see a star, it is very likely that that star has already burned out but it was so far away the explosions visibility is still traveling through space. Making it seems as if nothing has happened yet. But there is a lot a star goes through before it gets to this state, or also known as super nova. Since each star start off so big and only made up of Hydrogen, the gravitational pull is so great that it actually smashed Hydrogen atoms together then creating other elements. So after the first stage, Hydrogen, Hydrogen then forms into Helium. Helium is the second element on the periodic table. One may see the pattern here, but sadly the periodic table is much more complex than just the stages of a star. As Hydrogen does collide together to form Helium, it doesn't dissipate quite yet. Helium atoms stick
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