Heavy elements , eg , such as gold , are the result of the death of stars, when they explode or face. In a new study, scientists have uncovered the origins of various elements.
According to astronomer Carl Sagan, we are made of "stellar matter." This is a beautiful and even poetic reminder that life on Earth is closely interconnected with the processes that have taken place in the Universe for billions of years.
But what elements do these or those stars produce? This issue is still a matter of controversy. It is also unknown what proportion of the elements appears in this or that event.
Therefore, scientists, led by astrophysicist Chiaki Kobayashi from the University of Hertfordshire, have compiled a special periodic table of elements, which is based on the stellar origin of elements - from carbon to uranium.
It turned out that there is a big gap in our knowledge of where gold comes from. The researchers also stressed that a clear understanding of the origin of the elements not only helps us to estimate the amount of stellar matter in our bodies, but also to learn more about the evolution of the universe.
"The stars in the modern galaxy are fossils that hold information about the properties of the stars of the past," Kobayashi and her colleagues wrote in their study. "This approach is called galactic archeology and can be applied not only to our galaxy, but to others as well."
The Big Bang, the event that started the universe, became the main source of the lightest elements: hydrogen, helium and lithium. Then the stars began to create complex heavy elements, including those necessary for the formation of life, such as carbon, oxygen and nitrogen, as well as metals and, in particular, gold, silver and iron.
The origin of almost all elements can be traced back to several sources. “The contribution of each source depends on time and environment (ie the mass and type of galaxy). Therefore, it is necessary to use the Galactic Chemical Evolution (GCE) models to assess the contribution, ”the scientists explain.
Collisions of neutron stars with other dead celestial bodies are rare, which means that as a result of such events, not so many elements that exist in the Universe are produced. But earlier, scientists assumed that it was the merger of neutron stars that became the most important source of gold in the Universe.
New models created by Kobayashi's team showed that there were too few collisions of neutron stars in space, which could not have produced the amount of gold that we see. The researchers speculated that gold produces a special type of rotating supernova with strong magnetic fields.
Perhaps the study underestimates the number of collisions of neutron stars given that astronomers have just begun to directly observe these events.
Stars more than eight times as massive as the Sun explode into supernovae. This process produces neon, silver and iridium.
Smaller stars such as the Sun shed their outer layers as they die, resulting in the enrichment of the universe with nitrogen, lead and strontium.
White dwarfs sometimes explode with special types of supernovae, resulting in the appearance of manganese, iron and nickel.
The phrase "star business" beautifully and succinctly describes all these complex processes. But behind the poetic epithet is a wealth of fascinating research that explores the staggering variety of elements that appear around us.
Source: Popmech
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