You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge. -Eckhart Tolle

Its been an amazing week here atStarts With A Bang,and youve been given plenty to think about. In particular, heres what the past seven days have seen:

These were all fun to write, and as always, you werent shy about sharing your opinions and the information you had. So which ones deserve a response? Lets dive in to yourComments of the Week!

Image credit: Tom ODonoghue, via http://www.flickr.com/photos/28192200@N02/8528939580/in/photostream.

From david hurn on the first stars: I presume the first stars had no rocky planets?How many generations did it take to achieve earth like planets?

The first stars formed from the elements that were created from when the Universe was less than four minutes old. Some of those elements were radioactive and so they decayed, but all we were left with was about 92% hydrogen (by number), 8% helium, and less than 0.0000001% anything else. But once those stars formed, lived and died and the most massive ones go supernova in just a couple of million years, tops their pollution goes everywhere.

Image credit: 19982015 Lynette R. Cook.

The pollution from the first stars comes in the form of elements such as carbon, oxygen, silicon, sulphur, iron, cobalt and nickel, among many others. Each supernova produces many thousands of Earth-masses worth of these elements, and because these clusters are small, pollution is widespread, quickly. While it might take a long time to getbig rocky planets, or Earth-like rocky planets, or rocky planets that are quite rich in elements heavier than iron, we should start seeing the beginnings of rocky worlds in just the second generation.

The most likely place to find them? Gas giants Jupiter-like worlds that got too close to their parent star and had their hydrogen/helium envelopes boiled away.

Image credit: via http://shipyourenemiesglitter.com/.

The rest is here:
Comments of the Week #45: From the elements to Hubbles greatest [Starts With A Bang]