A group of international researchers has returned to the creation of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago to take a fresh look at the cosmic origin of the heaviest elements. And I found out exactly how they were created and during the process.
The heavy elements we encounter in our daily lives, such as iron and silver, did not exist at the beginning of the universe 13.7 billion years ago. They were formed in time by nuclear reactions called nucleosynthesis, which brought atoms together. In particular, iodine, gold, platinum, uranium, plutonium and curium – some of the heaviest elements – were created using a special type of nucleosynthesis called the rapid neutron capture process, or e-process.
The question of whether celestial events can produce the heaviest elements has remained a mystery for decades. Today, it is believed that the e-process can occur at the time of violent collisions between two neutron stars, between a neutron star and a black hole, or during rare explosions following the deaths of large stars. These high-energy events are very rare in the universe. When this happens, neutrons are absorbed into the nucleus of atoms and then converted to proteins. Since the elements in the seasonal table are determined by the number of proteins in their nuclei, the process r creates heavier nuclei as more neutrons are captured.
Some nuclei are radioactive e-processes and will take millions of years to break down into stable nuclei. Iodine-129 and curium-247 are two such nuclei that were formed before the sun was formed. They were incorporated into solids that eventually fell to the earth’s surface as meteorites. Within these meteorites, as a result of radioactive decay, too many stable nuclei were formed. Today, this excess can be measured in laboratories to determine the amount of iodine-129 and curium-247 present in the solar system just before its formation.
Why are these two chores of the e-process so unique? They have the usual property: they separate at almost the same rate. In other words, the ratio of iodine-129 to curium-247 has not changed since they were created billions of years ago.
“This is a remarkable misunderstanding, especially since these nuclei are two of the five nuclei of a radioactive e-process measurable in meteorites. When the ratio of iodine-129 to curium-247 is frozen in time as a prehistoric fossil, we can look directly at the last wave of heavy element production that shaped the solar system and its it’s all there. ”
Benoit Kote, Konkola Theater
Iodine, with its 53 protons, is easier to form than curium, with its 96 protons. This is because more neutron capture reactions are needed to achieve a greater number of curium proteins. As a result, the ratio of iodine-129 to curium-247 is largely dependent on the number of neutrons available at the time of formation.
The team worked out the ratio of iodine-129 to curium-247, synthesized by hitting neutron stars and black holes, to find the correct position similar to the combination of meteorites. They concluded that the number of neutrons available during the last e-process event before the birth of the solar system could not be too great. Another thing, too much curium would be formed compared to iodine. This means that neutron-rich sources, such as material that was separated from the neutron star’s surface during the crash, may not have played an important role.
So what created these e-process angles? While the researchers were able to provide new informative information about how they were created, they were unable to determine the nature of the celestial object they created. This is because models of nucleosynthesis based on nuclear buildings are uncertain, and it is not yet clear how they will link neutron access to specific celestial objects, such as massive explosions of orbiting neutron stars.
With this new diagnostic tool, advances in astrophysical modeling and understanding of nuclear buildings can reveal which celestial objects create the heaviest elements in the solar system.