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Elements may have been forged on Earth, as well as in space
- colechristensen 5y agoInteresting but seemingly quite speculative, evidence or experimental verification of this happening would seem to be a huge discovery.
- coldacid 5y agoMost of the more interesting physics stories seem to be near-fanciful these days.
- colechristensen 5y agoFor some solid physics news: https://news.uchicago.edu/story/what-muon-g-2-results-mean-how-we-understand-universe https://news.uchicago.edu/story/what-muon-g-2-results-mean-h...
- coldacid 5y agoI wouldn't exactly consider muons to be solid ;) But yeah more like this would be better than sites like Physics World.
- ryan_j_naughton 5y ago> The resulting supernovae, however, yield high-speed neutrons that are captured by nuclei to create elements heavier than iron. Current theoretical physics indicates that actually half of the elements heavier than iron are created not by supernovae but instead by binary neutron start collisions. These are R-Process elements. [1] Thus, the article is incorrectly attributing elements heavier than iron to generally be from supernovae when most the elements by mass heavier than iron are from neutron stars ripping each other apart and causing a rapid decay of these hadrons into the stable heavy elements. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-process
- phkahler 5y agoWhat about fusion with hydrogen? Iron + hydrogen.
- DrBazza 5y agoNot impossible, just very uncommon as it is not energetically favourable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion#/media/File:Binding_energy_curve_-_common_isotopes.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion#/media/File:Bin...
- coderintherye 5y agoRelated explanation: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/7131/what-is-the-origin-of-elements-heavier-than-iron https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/7131/what-is-the...
- willis936 5y agoAnd a related PBS Space Time: https://youtu.be/MmgMboWunkI https://youtu.be/MmgMboWunkI The theory was mentioned in passing towards the end of a video before LIGO's neutron merger observation: https://youtu.be/6yLGeviU8FM https://youtu.be/6yLGeviU8FM
- omgJustTest 5y ago1. The article is about low atomic numbers 2. The r process creates the super heavy elements in greater importance as the atomic number increases. 3. Fusion confinement is hard to achieve even with small nuclei, so if true the earth fusion reactor would be extraordinary. I would be interested to see experiments and more data (as the article calls for) TLDR: article is not principally about high atomic number elements and you might be splitting hairs over the areas it is not principally about. The article proposes new physics, which needs more evidence.
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- ramraj07 5y agoI’m still not fully able to understand how if these processes create elements one atom at a time, that kilograms of the same element can then clump together and settle between rocks.
- grozzle 5y agoI asked a geologist this, once, although specifically only about precious metals like gold and silver. He said the natural churn of everything moving around the Earth tends to concentrate similar things together over time. For example a river bend separates more dense silt on one side and less sense silt on the other. This, but also on a grand scale throughout the whole Earth. It's a start, but I still have questions.
- politician 5y agoIt's a stochastic merge sort over millennia. The sort objective is "by atomic weight".
- dtech 5y ago~millenia~ billions of years
- idontwantthis 5y agoWe are a failed Universe Developer interview assignment.
- mjfl 5y agosimilar chemistry precipitates the same element in the same conditions.
- mikewarot 5y agoCrystals tend to push out dissimilar atoms, certain chemicals are more soluble that others in water, bacteria may be responsible for certain types of gold particles found in nature. There's always another layer of processes at work that we don't know about yet, or so it seems.
- basicplus2 5y agoLike natural nuclear reactions producing things like 142 Nd & 99 Ru https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reac...
- londons_explore 5y agoThis article seems to suggest this idea is a little more than a thing a physicist thought up in the bath, and hasn't yet done the sums to verify that these reactions might even happen, let alone tested it experimentally.
- datavirtue 5y agoThe idea has been peer reviewed it seems and is worthy of further validation...as mentioned in the article.