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I'm surprised there's so much oxygen ... why is that? Why isn't there more Lithium (atomic number 3) than Oxygen (8)?
by The_Colonel 3y ago
I'm surprised there's so much oxygen ... why is that? Why isn't there more Lithium (atomic number 3) than Oxygen (8)?
- Monory 3y agoI got interested in that after your comment, and apparently there are two main reasons for that. 1. Oxygen is being produced in stars by so-called CNO cycle [0], which is how stars heavier than our sun mostly do their fusion. More intriguing question is why there's more oxygen than carbon or nitrogen (which, as implied by the name of the process, are also created), but that's a different topic. 2. Additionally, oxygen-16 is a particularly stable isotope, as its nucleus has “doubly magic” [1] amount of constituents, so it doesn't get destroyed in other processes. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNO_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNO_cycle [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_number_(physics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_number_(physics)
- bobbylarrybobby 3y agoI would imagine that oxygen is at some sort of happy medium of being easy enough to create through fusion but hard enough to fuse into other things that it is unexpectedly common.