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Taking into account that all these nuclides must exist for at least 4.6 × 10 9 years, 146 Sm must survive 45 half-lives (and hence be reduced by 2 45 ≈ 4 × 10 13), 244 Pu must survive 57 (and be reduced by a factor of 2 57 ≈ 1 × 10 17), and 92 Nb must survive 130 (and be reduced by 2 130 ≈ 1 × 10 39).
The next group is the primordial radioactive nuclides. These have been measured to be radioactive, or decay products have been identified in natural samples (tellurium-128, barium-130). There are 35 of these (see these nuclides ), of which 25 have half-lives longer than 10 13 years.
(t 1/2 = 4.5 × 10 9 years) of uranium is still fairly abundant in nature, but the shorter-lived isotope 235 U (t 1/2 = 0.7 × 10 9 years) is 138 times rarer. About 34 of these nuclides have been discovered (see List of nuclides and Primordial nuclide for details). The second group of radionuclides that exist naturally consists of radiogenic ...
They include 30 nuclides with measured half-lives longer than the estimated age of the universe (13.8 billion years [17]), and another four nuclides with half-lives long enough (> 100 million years) that they are radioactive primordial nuclides, and may be detected on Earth, having survived from their presence in interstellar dust since before ...
The Solar System and Earth are formed from primordial nuclides and extinct nuclides. Extinct nuclides have decayed away, but primordial nuclides still exist in their original state (undecayed). There are 251 stable primordial nuclides, and remainders of 35 primordial radionuclides that have very long half-lives.
There are no stable nuclides with mass numbers 5 or 8. There are stable nuclides with all other mass numbers up to 208 with the exceptions of 147 and 151, which are represented by the very long-lived samarium-147 and europium-151. (Bismuth-209 was found to be radioactive in 2003, but with a half-life of 2.01 × 10 19 years.)
By convention, certain stable nuclides of lithium, beryllium, and boron are thought to have been produced by cosmic ray spallation in the period of time between the Big Bang and the Solar System's formation (thus making these primordial nuclides, by definition) are not termed "cosmogenic", even though they were formed by the same process as the ...
Primordial radioisotopes are easily detected with half-lives as short as 700 million years (e.g., 235 U). This is the present limit of detection, [citation needed] as shorter-lived nuclides have not yet been detected undisputedly in nature except when recently produced, such as decay products or cosmic ray spallation.