if i understand correctly, right after the big bang there was hydrogen and maybe some helium.. how did the other elements come around?
2007-09-21 05:25:43 · 14 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
arent the stars made of elements? then how could the elements come from stars? And for real, im not an atheist and i wanna know the answer.. wouldnt you kind of.. need..to know the answer to one of the most popular arguments against evolution?..
2007-09-21 05:36:34 · update #1
Glad you asked.
Heavier elements are formed when stars go supernova. This can be modeled based purely on physics, but it can be observed as well. The dust rings around supernovae past can be analyzed spectrographically and the elements identified.
2007-09-21 05:38:27 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 1⤋
Ah a question right up my alley, seeing how its addressed to me. ;)
The Big Bang theory predicts that the early universe was a very hot place. One second after the Big Bang, the temperature of the universe was roughly 10 billion degrees and was filled with a sea of neutrons, protons, electrons, anti-electrons (positrons), photons and neutrinos. As the universe cooled, the neutrons either decayed into protons and electrons or combined with protons to make deuterium (an isotope of hydrogen). During the first three minutes of the universe, most of the deuterium combined to make helium. Trace amounts of lithium were also produced at this time. This process of light element formation in the early universe is called “Big Bang nucleosynthesis” (BBN). The term nucleosynthesis refers to the formation of heavier elements, atomic nuclei with many protons and neutrons, from the fusion of lighter elements.
Elements heavier than lithium are all synthesized in stars. During the late stages of stellar evolution, massive stars burn helium to carbon, oxygen, silicon, sulfur, and iron. Elements heavier than iron are produced in two ways: in the outer envelopes of super-giant stars and in the explosion of a supernovae. All carbon-based life on Earth is literally composed of stardust.
2007-09-21 06:15:06 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 6⤊ 0⤋
The elements created depend on the mass of the star exploding. Not all systems have the elements we have in this one. That doesn't make this system perfect for life by the way, just for the life that evolved here. The big bang was not instant. It has taken us 13 plus billion years just to get this far. Our sun has only been around less than 5 billion of those.
2007-09-21 05:35:30 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 1⤋
Stars burn up the simpler elements through nuclear fusion, and so other complex elements are formed. However, iron is the most complex element that can form in normal nuclear fusion.
In order to achieve more complex elements you have to have a more "violent" event, which is achieved through a supernova. Therefore, as Carl Sagan put it, we are all made of "star stuff." And as such the, it took several billion years for the more complex (and hence more rare) elements to form.
^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^
2007-09-21 06:23:34 · answer #4 · answered by NHBaritone 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Go to the science section for scientific Q&A.
"This is Religion Here"
P.S. - The God of the Gaps is a fallacious argument. Look it up for more info.
Being an atheist does not automatically make one an expert in science nor does it qualify one as a "science-geek" as you call them.
Furthermore it is incredibely rude, ignorant, and superficial to refer to someone as a "geek". How very Christ-like of you. Being knowledgeable about a subject does not make a person a "geek".
2007-09-21 05:38:04 · answer #5 · answered by Christy ☪☮e✡is✝ 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
All elements are made of atoms that are composed of a mixture of electrons, protons and neutrons.
These are the same for every atom .
It is the proportion of each that makes atoms of different elements.
All right now?
2007-09-21 05:40:05 · answer #6 · answered by brainstorm 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Familiar with why supernovas occur? Too much of helium in it had been converted into heavier elements...over time, the atoms fuse faster and faster together, making progressively heavier elements, until the star gets too heavy and dense that it becomes superheated and explodes. That's how.
2007-09-21 05:40:01 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 2⤋
They were formed in the core of stars. When the stars go supernova they scatter those elements throughout space.
We are stardust.
2007-09-21 05:32:50 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 4⤊ 1⤋
properly, I did have a baby's microscope. invoice Nye replaced into after my early existence and that i never study comic books, and that i do not remember having a chemistry set. yet I did advance as a lot as be a chemist.
2016-10-20 02:21:59 · answer #9 · answered by rhona 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Supernovas.
Helium was formed in stars, and it took a while for protons and neutrons to form.
2007-09-21 05:34:15 · answer #10 · answered by novangelis 7 · 2⤊ 1⤋