What Is The Origin Of The Elements?

This is the periodic table of the chemical elements. Beautiful, isn’t it? I bet you have already seen it hundred times.
There are 118 chemical elements in this table. The elements are ordered according to their atomic number, which is the number of protons in their nucleus. The lightest elements (hydrogen, helium) are those with lowest atomic number, which means lowest number of protons; and as we move along the rows and the columns of the table, the atomic number increases.
But… have you ever asked yourself, what is the origin of all these elements? How are they produced? Do they form all in the same way, or through different mechanisms?
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Hydrogen, helium, carbon, oxygen… all these names are very familiar to us. These are some of the most common chemical elements that we can find on Earth, and also in the Universe. But have you ever wondered how did they form? Did they all exist from the Big Bang, or did they form through some specific processes? Which of them are naturally occurring and which ones are not?
To answer this question, we need to analyse the periodic table starting from the lightest elements: hydrogen and helium.
Hydrogen is the lightest element in the Universe: one atom of this element contains only one proton and one electron. There are also two slightly different “versions” of this element, known as “isotopes”: the deuterium, in which the nucleus has one proton and one neutron, and the tritium, where the nucleus has one proton and two neutrons (all of them have one electron as well).
Helium is the second lightest element: an atom of helium contains two protons and two electrons (and a few neutrons too, depending on the isotope). These two are the simplest chemical elements, and also the most abundant ones: in fact, together they account nearly all ordinary matter in the Universe. And they are also the oldest! In fact, the origin of these two elements dates back to the very beginning of the Universe, about 14 billion years ago: the Big Bang.
Immediately after the Big Bang, the Universe was very hot and dense. Too much, indeed: in these conditions, chemical elements were not able to form yet, because protons, neutrons and electrons were moving too fast and they were not able to recombine together and to form atoms.
As the early Universe kept expanding, it also kept cooling down. As the temperature decreased, particles started moving slower and slower, and the temperature became low enough for protons and neutrons to form hydrogen and helium nuclei: this process is called nucleosynthesis, and it occurred in the first 3 minutes of life of the Universe.
At this point, however, electrons were still moving too fast, and the nuclei were not able to capture them to form atoms. For this process to occur, we need to wait approximately 380,000 years after the Big Bang. At that time, in fact, the temperature became low enough to allow nuclei to capture electrons and finally form the very first atoms of hydrogen and helium: this moment is known as “recombination”. Very tiny amounts of lithium (the third lightest element, having 3 protons and 3 electrons) were also produced at this time.
So, this is how hydrogen and helium were formed. The next three elements in the periodic table (lithium, beryllium and boron, having respectively 3, 4 and 5 protons in their nuclei), have a totally different origin. In fact, these three elements are mostly produced in a process known as “cosmic ray spallation”. What is it?
You may already know that the Earth is constantly bombarded by high-energy particles (mainly, but not only, protons) coming from space, known as “cosmic rays”. When these cosmic rays reach our atmosphere, they interact with the atoms and molecules present there, breaking them apart and leading to the formation of new atoms and particles through chain reactions. Most of the lithium, beryllium and boron that we find on Earth are produced exactly through this mechanism.
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Видео What Is The Origin Of The Elements? канала Insane Curiosity