LECTURE II: SYNTHESIS OF ELEMENTS

From: Broecker, Wally, Langmuir, Charles H. “How to Build a

Habitable Planet.”
 MATTER, DARK MATTER, DARK ENERGY

The standard theory of gravity would have an affect of slowing down the expanding universe
However the observations of furthest galaxies show that the expanding universe is accelerating,
rather than slowing down.
This is explained by an existence of a dark energy.
• Einstein’s theory that the space has its own energy is one explanation. As the space expands this energy
increases.
Due to several observations, scientist also conclude that there ‘s also a dark matter, that is a
matter that has gravity but cannot be seen.
• Some galaxies are spinning so fast that the outer stars should be flying off, but they don’t.
• Gravitational lensing of light due to some galaxies is higher than the observable matter that exist.
Universe is
• 68% dark energy
• 27% dark matter
• >5% is matter that we observe
 COMPOSITION OF THE UNIVERSE AND THE
EARTH

Earth is primarily made of four elements: Iron

(Fe), magnesium (Mg), silicon (Si), and oxygen
(O).”
Stars are primarily made up of Hydrogen (H)
and Helium.
For the universe as a whole, all elements
other than hydrogen and helium are minor;
taken together they account for only about
2% of all of the ~5% of matter that is not dark
matter or dark energy.
But these elements form the solid planets that
can create the conditions for habitable
environment.
So how and where did these elements form?
 WHAT ABOUT THE COMPOSITION OF THE
SUN?

All stars form from the gravitational collapse of clouds of gas.

Since most of the matter in the collapsing clouds ends up in the star, the star’s
chemical composition must be representative of the parent cloud.
If we could somehow determine the chemical composition of the sun, we could
constrain the composition of the galactic matter from which the sun formed.
So we look at absorption bands of the spectrum.
The more abundance of an element the more associated frequency bands are
absorbed.
ABUNDANCE OF ELEMENTS IN THE SOLAR
SYSTEM

Hydrogen and Helium dominant

Decline in abundance with increasing atomic
number.
Low abundance of Be, Li, B
Unusual abundance of Iron
Odd number of protons are generally less
abundant than their even-numbered neighbors.
 UNIVERSE IS PRIMARILY MADE UP OF
HYDROGEN AND HELIUM IN A VOID

The hydrogen and helium gas produced during the Big Bang eventually agglomerated into
megaclouds.
These organized into the spiral and elliptical shapes we see in distant galaxies.
Some of the gas in these newly formed galaxies in turn broke into far smaller subclouds that
collapsed under their mutual gravitation into stars.
So through their telescopes astronomers see a host of galaxies, each defined by billions of
stars.
Through careful observation, astronomers have been able to show that the process of star
formation continues. They see new stars forming and old ones dying.
 ONLY TWO ELEMENTS AFTER BIG BANG

At the instant of the Big Bang, all matter must have been contained in a very compact blob.
The pressures and temperatures in this primordial blob were so high that stable
combinations of neutrons and protons could not exist.
Within seconds after the explosion, however, such combinations could and did form. At
one time it was hypothesized that the blend of elements we see in our sun might have
been generated entirely during the first hour of universe history.

But subsequent work has shown that the only elements produced in significant amounts
during this very early phase of universe evolution were hydrogen and helium. The others
were produced billions of years later, inside giant stars.
 BASIC ATOMIC STRUCTURE

Nucleus: contains positive protons (p) and neutral

neutrons (n)
nucleus carries nearly all of the atom’s mass and is
incredibly small, only about 10–15 m in diameter.
Electrons: circling the nucleus within energy
"shells”
A fluff of negatively charged electrons fly in
complicated orbits around the central nucleus and
give the atom its size but add almost nothing to its
mass.
The diameter of this electron cloud is about 10–10
m (i.e., the atom is 100,000 times bigger than its
nucleus).
 ATOMIC NUMBER AND MASS NUMBER

Atoms are displayed in the format shown to the left where:

A = mass number (p + n)
Z = atomic number (protons)
X = chemical symbol of the atom

Electromagnetic forces
• + - attraction,
• ++ & -- repulsion
 FORMATION OF ATOMS

Under the electromagnetic repulsion force, how can

the positively charged protons in the nucleus stay
together in such a small volume?
Electrons are distributed in much larger volume and
they stay in different orbits and energy states. What
keeps them around the atom is the positively charged
nucleus.
STRONG FORCE: A much stronger (~138 times)
force than electromagnetism that pulls together the
protons and neutrons.
Strong force only operates in very short distances.
If you can bring protons and overcome the
electromagnetic repulsion, then the strong forced
dominates since it is stronger in short distances.
 FUSION REACTIONS

In order to form atoms with multiple protons, you need to overcome the electromagnetic
repulsive force.
It is like throwing a ping pong ball toward a ventilator.You have to throw it very fast.
~50 million degrees is required to make protons fast enough to bring them together.
Also neutrons are very important. They come between the protons keep the protons apart. So
the repulsive electrostatic force decreases
But neutrons by themselves are not stable and they decay to protons
If there are too many protons they decay to neutrons.
This balance keeps roughly similar amount of neutrons and protons in the atomic nucleus.
 STABLE ELEMENTS AND NUCLEAR FISSION
REACTIONS

If the nucleus gets too large, there are so

many protons that electrostatic repulsion
becomes large enough for the nucleus to
eject protons and neutrons.
209
Bi is the stable nuclide with the most
neutrons and protons.
All nuclei with more than 209 particles are
radioactive.”
As atom nuclei gets bigger neutron/proton
ratio > 1.
 ELEMENT FORMATION AFTER BIG BANG

All matter started as neutrons

Spontaneous decay to protons and electrons
During this period Hydrogen and Helium nucleus started to form.

https://astronomy.com

380 000 years after Big Bang

 NO LARGER ELEMENTS THAN HELIUM AFTER
BIG BANG

One critical feature is that no stable element formation for atomic weight of 5 or
8.
A helium nucleus colliding with the abundant protons or neutrons would produce
no reaction. Or two helium atoms colliding would also produce nothing.
So elements larger than 4He were not present

The ratio of H/He ~10 after Big Bang.

 ELEMENT FORMATION IN STARS

Stars form by gravitational collapse of large chunks of Hydrogen and Helium.

As these elements speed up toward each other, the temperature goes up.
You need extremely fast particles so that protons can collide with each other.
The temperature goes up so much that it can ignite nuclear fusion reactions (~60
million degrees for 2 hydrogen molecules to collide to form Helium)
This kind of temperature can only occur inside stars.
So we will see that elements heavier than Helium (until Fe - atomic number of 26)
forms inside large stars called Red Giants.
CONVERSION OF MASS TO ENERGY
 SMALLER STARS =>WHITE DWARFS

Mass < 8 times the mass of the sun

Most stars burn Hydrogen and turn it into Helium at their core.
If the star is not large (0.3-8 solar mass) when it burns all the
hydrogen and forms Helium, it starts burning He to form
Carbon (Atomic number=6)
At this period it expands and becomes a red giant
the pressures are not sufficient to generate heat sufficient to
burn to form heavier elements.
Once the Helium burns, the star gravitationally collapses and
turns into a very dense object called the white dwarf
97% of the stars follow this path.
https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/1622-the-sun-and-white-dwarfs
 ELEMENT FORMATION IN MASSIVE STARS

Mass > 9 solar mass (~10 to 25 times the solar

mass)
For massive stars, the path is different.
First the Star will burn its Hydrogen. Then it will
burn Helium. It is so large that the pressure and
temperature increases that it can burn also
heavier elements.
The temperature in the core is sufficient to
generate all the elements up to Fe (Iron) with an
atomic number of 26.
The fusion reactions cannot produce elements
heavier than iron.
This is because there is no mass lost as larger
elements are formed. When no mass is lost, no
energy is released. So it becomes unsustainable.
 LACK OF LITHIUM, BERYLLIUM AND BORON

There are no stellar processes that make these

elements in sufficient quantities without destroying
them almost as quickly
If you were to add hydrogen to helium, you'd create
lithium-5, which is unstable and decays almost
immediately.You could try to fuse two helium-4 nuclei
together to make beryllium-8, which is also unstable
and decays almost immediately. In fact, all nuclei with
masses of either 5 or 8 are unstable.
You cannot make these elements from stellar
reactions involving light or heavy elements; there's no
way to make them in stars at all.
Yet lithium, beryllium, and boron not only all exist,
they're essential to life processes here on Earth.
 WHY ARE THE EVEN ATOMIC NUMBER
ELEMENTS MORE ABUNDANT?

The binding energy of a nucleus depends on the pairing status of the protons and
neutrons.
In the semi-empirical mass formula, there is a pairing term which captures the
mutual interaction associated with the energetic favorability of pairing nucleons
with opposite spin. That means nuclei with even numbers of protons and neutrons
have higher binding energies than those with odd/even and especially odd/odd
nuclei.
What this means in practice is that there is an energy penalty and therefore a
reduced probability of producing elements with odd numbers of protons during
equilibrium nucleosynthesis reactions inside stars.
For example a heavy nucleus with an odd number of protons might be more likely
to undergo beta decay if it is neutron-rich or more likely to undergo neutron
capture if it is neutron poor, than an adjacent nucleus with an even number
ofprotons.
TYPE OF STARS AND THEIR EVOLUTION

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 HOW DID THE ELEMENTS HEAVIER THAN
IRON FORM?
Two questions arise:
• How can elements heavier than Fe be produced?
• much use for planet building if the elements remain trapped inside. There must be some distribution.
Making elements in stellar interiors is not much use for planet building if the elements remain trapped inside.
There must be some distribution mechanism that allows these elements to become broadly dispersed throughout the
universe.
We know this must be the case not only because of the compositions of the planets but also the composition of the
sun itself. The materials from which the sun formed must have included all the elements, because the solar spectrum
shows that all of these elements exist in the sun itself. It is not made up only of H and He.
Before discussing the solution to these two problems, let us briefly consider the fate of smaller stars like our sun.
When the core of our sun runs out of hydrogen, several billion years from now, it will resume its collapse.
However, our sun is just barely massive enough to generate the temperature necessary to start a helium fire. Then,
after it has burned its core helium, it will collapse into a very dense object that will cool slowly until it gives off only a
dull glow. A star to which this has happened is referred to as a white dwarf.
The sun has another 5 billion years of Hydrogen left. It will burn another 2-3 billions of Helium and some Carbon and
will become a white dwarf.
 SUPERNOVA EXPLOSIONS AND FORMATION
OF HEAVY ELEMENTS

The solution to the two problems of heavy element creation and element distribution is solved thanks to
the numbers of very massive stars that exist.
These massive stars are ten to twenty-five times the mass of the sun and have such a large gravitational
attraction that very high temperatures are required to prevent their collapse. They rapidly progress to the
multilayered structure
Once Fe forms in their core, however, no further heat production is possible through fusion, and there is
nothing to prevent their further collapse.
The ensuing collapse is catastrophic, bringing the iron nuclei so close together that their nuclear shells
begin to interpenetrate. The resistance for further compression generates a shock wave that pushes its
exterior outwards.
The result is like throwing gasoline onto a hot fire. An incredible explosion occurs, tearing the star asunder.
Much of the interior material is blown free of the star’s gravity into the galactic surroundings.
Astronomers call these explosions type II supernovae. A second kind of supernova (called type I) evolves
when a white dwarf accretes material from its companion stars.
When its mass reaches a certain limit, 12C and 16O fuse to form 56Fe, leading to a gigantic nuclear
explosion.
 NEUTRON CAPTURE

Nuclear reaction called neutron capture occurring during these explosions create elements
heavier than iron.
Because the neutron has no charge, when it is shot with very high speeds, it hits a nucleus, amd it
is not repelled by any nucleus it happens to encounter; it can freely enter any nucleus, regardless
of how slowly it is moving. This ability of the neutron to react with nuclides under “room
temperature” conditions lies at the heart of the principle of nuclear power generation.

During the explosion that marks the death of

a massive star, a host of nuclear reactions
occur that release free neutrons
 FROM IRON TO HEAVIER ELEMENTS

In the close-packed conditions inside the exploding star, the neutrons encounter a
nucleus long before they get around to undergoing spontaneous decay to a proton plus
an electron.
Many of these encounters will be with Fe nuclei. The Fe nucleus absorbs the neutron and
becomes heavier. In the supernova explosion, these neutron hits will be like bullets from a
machine gun.
An Fe atom hit by one neutron than it is hit by another very fast. The Fe nucleus gets
heavier and heavier until finally it cannot absorb any more neutrons. This very brief pause
in growth ends when one of the extra neutrons that have been plastered on undergoes
beta decay by emitting an electron and becomes a proton.
Each neutron that decays becomes a proton and increases the atomic number by one,
while maintaining the same total number of nuclear particles in the nucleus. The decay of
one neutron converts the Fe nucleus to cobalt (Co).
This is the first step along the chain of production of the heavy elements. The Co nucleus
can in its turn absorb neutrons one after another, until it too becomes saturated. It then
emits an electron and in so doing becomes a nickel
 ELEMENTS IN SOLAR SYSTEM

In conclusion solar system did not form from the initial elements of big bang.
Although the solar system is primarily made up of H and He, the heavier elements
have formed inside a massive star up to the element Fe.
The heavier elements have formed inside this massive star, and must have spread
around due to a supernova explosion.
So what makes the elements of the solar system is a combination of the primary
elements in addition to the heavier elements.