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The periodic table, colour coded by the likely origin of each element
- sradman 6y agoBased on Mineral Evolution [1] as popularized in the books and lectures of Robert M. Hazen [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral_evolution [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hazen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hazen
- jacknews 6y agoThe image shown by wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_element https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_element seems more complete and better laid out, and is also by cmglee (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Cmglee https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Cmglee), based on data from Jennifer Johnson at Ohio State University (http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~jaj/nucleo/ http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~jaj/nucleo/): https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Nucleosynthesis_periodic_table.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Nucleosy...
- nuccy 6y agoThis table was also featured at Astronomy Picture Of the Day website (APOD for short) few days ago [1]. Judging by the tags in the tweet, author took it from there. [1] https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200809.html https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200809.html P.S. After the comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) is gone, pictures are again diverse and range from different fields of astronomy ;)
- spirographer 6y agoThis article gives the more detailed explanation of the chart's data. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleosynthesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleosynthesis BTW, image search of nucleosynthesis gives about 10 different versions of this infographic, with fairly significant variation.
- LanceH 6y agoThe wikipedia entry is substantially different. The twitter version only labels 6 of 7 categories and what would appear to be multiple elements miscategorized.
- identity0 6y agoBrown: made by monkeys on terrestrial planets
- dandare 6y agoHow did elements created by a merging neutron stars and dying low-mass stars get down to our planet?
- mc32 6y agoTime? They had like 10 billion years to diffuse and propagate I guess...
- AllegedAlec 6y agoOur sun is about 4.6B year old. There were a few other generations of stars that lived and died before our sun came about, and these spewed out the heavier elements that make up our solar system.
- Tepix 6y agoIt must have been a somewhat dull first generation of stars and planets with only Hydrogen and Helium around. On the other hand, giant stars explode after just a few million years so it didn't take long for other elements to appear.
- dredmorbius 6y agoThe ratio of heavier elements to H & He is called metallicity, and it is a measurable characteristic of stars, which are classed into Type I (high metallicity) and Type II (low) populations. Low-metallicity Type II stars are generally older. Nothing specific on what Type II stellar systems and planets would be like, though I'd suspect gas giants, generally. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallicity
- saagarjha 6y agoI think they make up for their dullness by being absolutely massive–hundreds of solar masses, if not more.
- BurningFrog 6y agoThey didn't land on the planet, they formed it.
- mjs 6y agoWikipedia original: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_element#/media/File:Nucleosynthesis_periodic_table.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_element#/media/File:N...
- Waterluvian 6y agoAs you walk your way down the table is there a correlation with elements being more “recycled” for lack of a better term? Ie. H and He are the basest elements and then everything else is formed through increasing amount of processes? Having a hard time articulating this one.
- macintux 6y agoIt certainly makes sense: you need more complex machinery to form more complex elements.
- JadeNB 6y ago> It certainly makes sense: you need more complex machinery to form more complex elements. Probably time as much as machinery: in the hyper-energetic early universe, it would have been harder for matter to get close together long enough to form large atoms. (I just push back slightly because I think complex elements aren't really complex, just big, requiring a stable environment for 'assembly'—but I am a mathematician, not a physicist or chemist, so I wouldn't be surprised to be wildly wrong.)
- categorybooks 6y agoYou might enjoy these: https://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-8-007-cosmic-origin-of-the-chemical-elements-fall-2019/Videos/episode1/ https://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-8-007-cosmic-origin-of-the...
- hermitcrab 6y agoThe process that drives stars is fusion, which turns light elements into heavier (strictly greater atomic number) elements, up to iron. Elements heavier than iron are created in supernovas, neutron star collisions etc. Many heavier elements are unstable and will radioactively decay into light elements. So it is a continual process both ways.
- Waterluvian 6y agoDo they decay to some stable middle region or are they decaying right back down to hydrogen? I’m guessing this is about entropy to an extent.
- categorybooks 6y agoHere's a great resource for the basics from professor Anna Frebel at MIT: https://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-8-007-cosmic-origin-of-the-chemical-elements-fall-2019/ https://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-8-007-cosmic-origin-of-the...
- arethuza 6y agoFor some completely irrational reason I was slightly disappointed that the gold in my wedding ring was only from a neutron star merger and probably not from a supernova. However, reading the relevant wikipedia page I came across this part: "this single neutron star merger event generated between 3 and 13 Earth masses of gold" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold#Gold_production_in_the_Universe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold#Gold_production_in_the_Un... Can't wait to refer to that in the next discussion on HN about gold as a store of value.... ;-)
- WorldMaker 6y agoNeutron Star Mergers & Acquisitions sounds like a great title for book or TV show.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- rini17 6y agoI have a very-soon-merging neutron star pair to sell to you.
- WorldMaker 6y ago"You want to be on the ground floor of this IPO because I'm telling you it's going to just be exploding gold (and other elements)."
- ISL 6y agoRadioactive gold, at that.
- ISL 6y agoWhile the neutron-star merger suggested that a substantial fraction of the r-process occurs in neutron stars, it does not rule out the possibility that the r-process also occurs in supernovae (the other leading candidate). I'd be happy to wager that at least a couple percent of your wedding ring's nuclei were formed in a supernova.
- altcognito 6y agoThis table raises a lot of questions for me: How does a "merged" neutron star, "unmerge?" Or is most of the Au of the universe tied up in neutron stars? And how does that work given that neutron stars are mostly... neutrons?
- sgt101 6y agoWhen they merge they do a helluva lot of unmerging at the same time. Like, seen across the universe unmerge action.
- nwallin 6y agoA neutron star "merger" is a collision between two of the hottest, densest objects in the universe that are still objects. These collisions are incredibly messy and energetic. Stuff gets blown everywhere - a lot of stuff. Once freed and blown out into space, the remaining neutronium is incredibly unstable without the intense gravitational pressures holding it together. It will rapidly decay into relatively stable material.
- peter_d_sherman 6y agoThis chart brings up the question of HOW exactly each element is created... A long time ago, in Alchemy, there was the idea that certain elements could be transformed into other elements by alchemical processes. This idea, back then, was called "Transmutation". Now, scientists of today know transmutation as possible, but only with select heavy elements, and only in atom smashers/cyclotrons/large hadron colliders -- call them by whatever name you will. Also, there exist radioactive elements which, over (usually!) very long periods of time, decay or transmute, into lighter elements. The common theme, in all of the above, is radiation. In other words, radiation is somehow linked to the transformation of elements. Now, with that in mind, if I may posit an impromptu hypothesis, and that is, not all radiation is created equal... In other words, you have alpha rays, beta rays, x-rays, gamma rays, etc. Or call them particles instead of rays if you prefer. Anyway, Each of these particles/rays has different penetrating power. An alpha ray/particle (if I recall correctly) is blocked by a piece of paper, but it takes yards and yards of cement or metal to block a gamma ray -- and that's even if you can do it. But, here's the thing. Usually we see heat in the role of transforming things, not so much from element to element, but from compound to elements (i.e., refining iron from iron ore). So, with that in mind, here's the hypothesis: Perhaps heat -- is actually radiation, but at a lower scale/magnitude/area of effect/penetration-of-space/ability to traverse a distance, power. In other words -- heat is localized radiation. Or, phrased another way, radiation is heat -- but sent outward to a non-local distance. So why is radiation "cold" at a distance to us humans? Well, remember that that's a scale effect (the underlying energy should have the same pattern regardless of scale, that is, scale could be much smaller), and the Inverse Square Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law) still applies. So, heat as localized radiation, and radiation as larger-in-scale-with-respect-to-distance heat. A crackpot theory? Perhaps! You be the judge!
- jacknews 6y agoRiddle me this. Why are there 4 fields (strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetic, gravity). What even is a 'field'. Why does gravity affect the other three? What is time? What is space? What is quantum entanglement? Why is there a universal speed limit? Why do you need an 'equal and opposite reaction' to gain momentum, why can't you just convert angular energy directtly into linear energy in a single direction? Why is there a universe at all, instead of nothing? Etc, etc. But as far as 'what is heat', you should read more, or just google your questions. You might be surprised at how many other people have asked the same questions, and then set out to answer them, but with evidence. It's called "Science".
- dnautics 6y agoI don't like that these don't also take into account secondary events (like non catastrophic fusion nucleosynthesis, or radioactive decay). And maybe some indication that nearly all helium on earth is not primordial, which is not the case in the universe.
- delibes 6y agoEven though I've seen that before, it never properly registered with me that Boron and Beryllium are made by a separate process: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_ray_spallation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_ray_spallation
- rbobby 6y agoThe unlabeled color is for human synthesized elements without a stable isotope. Thanks wikipedia.
- willis936 6y agoIt would be cool to see this made into a series of pie charts (one for each element) where the relative area of each pie chart is dictated by the relative abundance of each element.
- Jedd 6y ago100+ pie charts? That sounds even worse than just one pie chart -- though given H and He make up ~98% of everything, squeezing the data into one pie chart would make it extra-awful.
- willis936 6y agoI don’t see how it would be awful. It would give the same information but also show how much matter is from each source. Vector graphics eliminate resolution concerns. Just zoom past hydrogen if it’s taking up 98% of the screen. Edit: to be clear: the reason it would “be cool to see” is because it’s visualizing data. It’s what graphs are for. I don’t care about the pies of the pie charts. I care about being able to see the relative quantity of the colors and to also see the distribution of discrete element quantities in one image. There are many ways to do this. If you have a better suggestion, suggest it.
- Jedd 6y agoSo you want to see the ratio of origin of all elements, but grouped by element? (one chart per element I think you said originally). This is what the image in TFA actually has -- each element has one or more colours within its rectangle, and I assume that the proportion of each colour reflects relative provenance for that particular element.
- willis936 6y agoYes, but the information of the abundance of each element is not present. If that information was added into this plot then the relative amount of each color would be the relative abundance of the origin of elements.
- pyuser583 6y agoCool!