Lithium Mystery Solved: It’s Exploding Stars, Not The Big Bang Or Cosmic Rays
The origin of the 3rd element on the periodic table was one of the great cosmic mysteries. We just solved it.
How did we form the elements that pervade the Universe today? They come from a variety of sources. Some were formed over 13 billion years ago, in the earliest stages of the hot Big Bang. Others weren’t formed until much later, forged in stars and various astrophysical cataclysms. Still others come from particle collisions in space: where high-energy cosmic rays run into atomic nuclei, splitting them apart into rare, light elements.
Of all the elements on the periodic table, one of the hardest to account for is lithium: the third element of all. We observe that it exists on Earth, throughout the Solar System, and all over the galaxy but we’ve been unable to explain how it’s made. However, new research led by astrophysicist Sumner Starrfield has just solved the puzzle, finding precisely the right amount that was missing. The culprit? An often-overlooked class of exploding stars: classical novae. Here’s what we’ve learned.
