Starship Asterisk*

Guest wrote:
The figure claims that lithium comes primarily from cosmic rays, but this is not the case as far as I know. The Wikipedia page on lithium says "According to modern cosmological theory, lithium—as both of its stable isotopes lithium-6 and lithium-7—was among the 3 elements synthesized in the Big Bang." The only mention of cosmic rays on the whole page is in the sentence "Additional small amounts of lithium of both 6Li and 7Li may be generated from solar wind, cosmic rays hitting heavier atoms, and from early solar system 7Be and 10Be radioactive decay." The lithium square should be recolored to Big Bang Purple, as far as I can tell. I didn't attempt to check any other entries, but this one jumped out at me since I remember learning in my physics classes that lithium came primarily from the big bang.

Guest wrote:The figure claims that lithium comes primarily from cosmic rays, but this is not the case as far as I know. The Wikipedia page on lithium says "According to modern cosmological theory, lithium—as both of its stable isotopes lithium-6 and lithium-7—was among the 3 elements synthesized in the Big Bang." The only mention of cosmic rays on the whole page is in the sentence "Additional small amounts of lithium of both 6Li and 7Li may be generated from solar wind, cosmic rays hitting heavier atoms, and from early solar system 7Be and 10Be radioactive decay." The lithium square should be recolored to Big Bang Purple, as far as I can tell. I didn't attempt to check any other entries, but this one jumped out at me since I remember learning in my physics classes that lithium came primarily from the big bang.

Chris Peterson wrote:
In general, most Li is not assumed to be primordial, so the cell is probably best left as is, at least until ideas are better developed.

http://phys.org/news/2014-08-big-conditions-lithium-problem.html wrote:
Measurement at Big Bang conditions confirms lithium problem
August 27, 2014

[b][color=#0000FF]Michael Anders at the LUNA accelerator in Italy. Credit: HZDR/M. Anders[/color][/b]

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<<The field of astrophysics has a stubborn problem and it's called lithium. The quantities of lithium predicted to have resulted from the Big Bang are not actually present in stars. But the calculations are correct – a fact which has now been confirmed for the first time in experiments conducted at the underground laboratory in the Gran Sasso mountain in Italy. As part of an international team, researchers from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) studied how much lithium forms under Big Bang conditions. The results were published in Physical Review Letters.

Lithium, aside from hydrogen and helium, is one of the three elements that are created before the first stars form. These three elements were – according to the theory – already created early on, through what is known as "primordial nucleosynthesis." That means that when the universe was only a few minutes old, neutrons and protons merged to form the nuclei of the these elements. At the Laboratory for Underground Nuclear Astrophysics (LUNA), the nucleosynthesis of lithium has now been reproduced by an international team of scientists. Michael Anders, who earned his doctorate in the last year at TU Dresden and HZDR on this very topic, took a leading role on the team. Within the framework of a project that was funded by the German Research Foundation, he was supervised by Dr. Daniel Bemmerer, group leader at HZDR.

In the Italian underground laboratory, the scientists fired helium nuclei at heavy hydrogen (known as deuterium) in order to reach energies similar to those just after the Big Bang. The idea was to measure how much lithium forms under similar conditions to those during the early stages of the universe. The result of the experiment: the data confirmed the theoretical predictions, which are incompatible with the observed lithium concentrations found in the universe.

"For the first time, we could actually study the lithium-6 production in one part of the Big Bang energy range with our experiment," explains Daniel Bemmerer. Lithium-6 (three neutrons, three protons) is one of the element's two stable isotopes. The formation of lithium-7, which possesses an additional neutron, was studied in 2006 by Bemmerer at LUNA.

With these new results, what is known as the "lithium problem" remains a hard nut to crack: on the one hand, now all laboratory results of the astrophysicists suggest that the theory of primordial nucleosynthesis is correct. On the other hand, many observations of astronomers show that the oldest stars in our Milky Way contain only half as much lithium-7 as predicted. Sensational reports by Swedish researchers, who discovered clearly more lithium-6 in such stars than predicted, must also likely be checked again based on the new LUNA data. Bemmerer says, "Should unusual lithium concentrations be observed in the future, we know, thanks to the new measurements, that it cannot be due to the primordial nucleosynthesis.">>

neufer wrote:

Chris Peterson wrote: In general, most Li is not assumed to be primordial, so the cell is probably best left as is, at least until ideas are better developed.

In general, at least HALF of Li is primordial, so the cell should be changed to reflect that fact.

http://phys.org/news/2014-08-big-conditions-lithium-problem.html wrote:

Chris Peterson wrote:

neufer wrote:

Chris Peterson wrote:
In general, most Li is not assumed to be primordial,
so the cell is probably best left as is, at least until ideas are better developed.

In general, at least HALF of Li is primordial, so the cell should be changed to reflect that fact.

http://phys.org/news/2014-08-big-conditions-lithium-problem.html wrote:

I don't think that's the conclusion of the referenced work.

Chris Peterson wrote:
Furthermore, the situation is complicated by the fact that the origin of Li in old stars may be quite different from that found locally, which means we have to decide what is meant by where "our" elements came from.

neufer wrote:Theoretically, virtually ALL Li is primordial.

Experimentally, HALF of Li can be confirmed to be primordial.

Originally, I bent over backwards by giving the APOD diagram the benefit of the doubt that it seemed to specifically refer to elements of humans/animals/Earth.

However, since ALL Earth Helium comes from radioactivity the diagram must refer to Solar System/Universe instead.

Hence, there is absolutely no reason to credit cosmic rays with the bulk of Li or Be.

Alohascope wrote:Why aren't photonic molecules shown on your table?

http://phys.org/news/2013-09-scientists ... -seen.html

Chris Peterson wrote:

Alohascope wrote:Why aren't photonic molecules shown on your table?

http://phys.org/news/2013-09-scientists ... -seen.html

Because they aren't elements.

Chris Peterson wrote:

neufer wrote:
Hence, there is absolutely no reason to credit cosmic rays with the bulk of Li or Be.

You mean outside of a large body of respectable, reviewed literature?

• Example

Ron-Astro Pharmacist wrote:I couldn't figure out why our helium supply seemed -all of a sudden- better. It's not like we are going to start making it helium from fusion any time soon.

Then I read this.

But then again maybe there's a new source?

Sun Canadian Pipeline.jpg

Those Canucks are ambitious!!