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The Creation of Elements: From Stars to Earth

Scientists study stars, including our sun, to understand how elements were created. The sun, primarily composed of hydrogen, exists in a hot plasma state with temperatures reaching 15 million degrees Celsius. In this state, nuclear fusion occurs, combining smaller nuclei into heavier ones, such as transforming hydrogen into helium. Through this process, larger nuclei can form, producing elements up to oxygen. Eventually, massive stars explode in a supernova, creating even heavier elements, including iron, which are essential to Earth and its composition.

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The Creation of Elements: From Stars to Earth

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Presentation Transcript

  1. 16-4 Elements from Stardust

  2. Elements from Stars • Scientists study the stars and our sun to understand how elements (matter) were created and why. • The sun is mostly made of Hydrogen (H). H

  3. PLASMA STATE • The temperature of the sun is very hot—15 M degrees Celsius. • At hot temperatures and high pressure, matter exists as plasma. • In the plasma state, nuclei are stripped of their electrons and packed tightly together, they don’t repel each other. P+ N NO ELECTRONS P+ N P+ N

  4. NUCLEAR FUSION • With the high pressure and hot temperature in the sun, nuclei of atoms are squeezed together and they collide. • Nuclear fusion combines smaller nuclei into larger nuclei—making bigger and heavier atoms.

  5. Hydrogen into Helium • When isotopes of hydrogen fuse, they produce nuclei of helium + HUGE amounts of energy for us!

  6. Hydrogen all the way to Oxygen • As “He” builds up in the sun, bigger and bigger nuclei can form. H + H makes He (2p+) He + H makes Li (3p+) He + He makes Be (4p+) and so on, and so on, up to oxygen

  7. Supernova • With time, large stars have enough energy to produce heavier elements (from oxygen thru iron) • A supernova is a huge explosion that breaks apart a massive star, because the star becomes too dense • The huge explosion produces the heaviest elements

  8. Earth has abundant amounts of iron but also has many elements heavier than iron. How are these present? • The matter that makes up Earth was probably formed in a gigantic supernova that occurred billions of years ago.

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