Riley Morgan Bio Mr. Ipp

Current event 9 review 11/6/18

Ancient space crystals may prove the sun threw heated tantrums as a tot

You can learn a lot from 4.5-billion-year-old rocks.

By Neel V. Patel July 31, 2018

https://www.popsci.com/space-crystal-meteorite-early-sun

The Popular Science article “ Ancient space crystals may prove the sun threw heated tantrums as a tot” written by Neel Vatel claims that Many newborn and toddler stars are not all that different from  newborn and toddler humans. He says that they are both “prone to bouts of cranky energy” and often have loud and violent temper tantrums. Reel says that stars also vomit, and cry just like human toddlers. Scientists wonder if the sun ever acted or does act in this way, but there has been little evidence to prove it.  The article’s main focus is about how “blue crystals from space, seems to suggest the sun emitted a much higher flux of cosmic rays in its early history than we once thought.” These blue crystals are called Hibonite and have made its way down to the earth the same way that meteorites do. Hibonite is the first material found from the solar system that is created by cooling gas from the sun. Levke Kööp, a cosmochemistry researcher at the University of Chicago says that “We think hibonites like those in Murchison formed close to the young sun, because that is where temperatures were high enough to form such minerals,” The research team does not have an exact date on how old the Hibonites are but they are inferring that they are about 4.5 billion years old. The research team uses highly sensitive mass spectrometer which is located at ETH Zurich in Switzerland. They melt the grains of hibonite using a laser. The spectrometer measured and confirmed that there were helium The research team studied the hibonite crystals using a highly sensitive mass spectrometer at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, melting the grains of hibonite down with a laser while the spectrometer measured and confirmed the presence of helium and neon concentrations. and neon concentrations found. The team noticed that helium and neon were not present in younger crystals. This means that something changed throughout the years. Although scientists are not sure why, they are eager to find out because of the fact that “This sort of insight might augur later into a better understanding of how the roles star evolution plays in the creation of elements and materials that later on assemble into planets and other celestial bodies”

a better understanding of how the roles star evolution plays in the creation of elements and materials that later on assemble into planets and other celestial bodies. Andrew Davis who is co author on the study said that it is hard to measure the helium and neon traces and conduct a real analysis on hubonite because of how small they are. He says scientists are working on a new instrument to study the isotopic compositions of the hibonite grains. They are doing this to get a better understanding of “how different sources of dust were mixed in the early solar nebula.

This article has a huge impact on society. These Hibonite crystals, if properly studied could mean huge things our knowledge on the solar system. Our whole society is fascinated with the solar system and almost everyone is eager to learn more about it. It is possible that these discoveries could lead to more discoveries about the sun and the stars too. Our solar system, especially the sun does not just affect our society but it affects our whole world and that is why this has such a big impact.

I loved how this article was not extremely lengthy. It said all of the points it needed to say in a few paragraphs. Although short it has a lot of detail and was jam packed with information.  Although it did have a lot of information I wished the article talked more about the relevance of these crystals other than the big impact of the sun. I also wished there was some background information given about how scientists discovered these crystals. Lastly, in the first sentence of the article, Reel writes how “Many newborn and toddler stars are not all that different from newborn and toddler humans—prone to bouts of cranky energy, loud and violent tempers”. I did not find the relevance in this statement and do not believe it benefited the article in any way. To improve this article I would include a little bit more background information, along with state the exact relevance and how the crystals will be used. I would also make sure that every sentence that is written helps to backup your information and has relevance to your topic.

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