Remains of asteroids in a bright white star could help astronauts find ‘missing’ lithium

Crushed asteroids found in the atmosphere of a long-dead white dwarf star could help astronauts find and quantify the planet’s missing lithium.

The amount of lithium in stars like our sun has never exceeded what scientists predict it should be – suggesting that there is much more to it than we can. to seek.

The Big Bang, the main explanation for how the universe began 13.8 billion years ago, introduced three elements: hydrogen, helium and lithium.

Of the three elements, lithium exhibits the greatest mystery. But the new study by University of North Carolina astronauts provides evidence for monitoring how it grows.

By finding traces of the element in the asteroid rock remains in a nine-billion-year-old white dwarf atmosphere, scientists could help quantify the amount of lithium in the universe as it suggests that it has been distributed to rocky bodies.

This is the first time the difficult element has been found in the remains of a dead star, according to University of North Carolina researchers.

Despite what it has used on Earth to power electronics and to stabilize emotions, scientists have been overwhelmed by the amount of lithium expected from the Big Bang, between -difference known as the ‘cosmological lithium problem.’

No one knows the amount of lithium in the universe, but these new findings mean that white-black stars could be used to estimate the amount total.

The detection was made possible by the use of a special spectrograph placed on a Southern Astrophysical Research telescope.

The author of the study, astronaut J. Christopher Clemens, led the design of the Goldman Spectrograph which measures the amount of light emitted by a white dwarf.

White dwarfs are the culprits left when stars die, and can be surrounded by a rocky world. Our sun will become a white dwarf when it dies.

The upper surface of these stars should have elements heavier than hydrogen and helium sink rapidly below the surface.

Nonetheless, some ‘polluted’ white dwarf stars show evidence for heavier elements on their surfaces, and this is thought to be the result of a recent accumulation of rocky bodies.

In the study, researchers report the discovery of crushed remains of large asteroid-like objects in the atmosphere of two very old white dwarfs.

The planets of these dead stars were first created nine billion years ago – our sun and the planets were created just 4.6 billion years ago.

The team measured the chemical composition of the asteroids, and for the first time identified and measured both lithium and potassium from an extrasolar rock group.

Theory suggests that lithium was formed mainly in the first five minutes after the Big Bang. The subsequent history is different from other elements and is more uncertain because lithium is consumed by nuclear reflexes in stars.

Found in the bright white stars is a record of the original rocky bodies formed nine billion years ago – and thus the abundance of lithium galactic at the time of their creation – within the first few billion years of the universe.

The authors note that reputable groups such as the ones who corrupted this star ‘represent an alternative for former stars to get a glimpse of the prime minister. [lithium] abundance, the earliest levels of chemical enrichment in our Galaxy, and features of ancient exoplanets. ‘

‘Our amount of lithium from a rocky body in another solar system lays the foundation for a more reliable way to monitor the amount of lithium in our galaxy over time,’ Clemens said.

‘Finally with many of these white dwarfs having asteroids falling on them, we will be able to predict the amount of lithium formed in the Big Bang.

The findings were published in the journal Science.