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Francis Aston had also recently shown that the mass of a helium atom was about 0.8% less than the mass of the four hydrogen atoms which would, combined, form a helium atom (according to the then-prevailing theory of atomic structure which held atomic weight to be the distinguishing property between elements; work by Henry Moseley and Antonius ...
As a side effect of the process, some carbon nuclei fuse with additional helium to produce a stable isotope of oxygen and energy: 12 6 C + 4 2 He → 16 8 O + γ (+7.162 MeV) Nuclear fusion reactions of helium with hydrogen produces lithium-5, which also is highly unstable, and decays back into smaller nuclei with a half-life of 3.7 × 10 −22 s.
Supernova nucleosynthesis is the nucleosynthesis of chemical elements in supernova explosions.. In sufficiently massive stars, the nucleosynthesis by fusion of lighter elements into heavier ones occurs during sequential hydrostatic burning processes called helium burning, carbon burning, oxygen burning, and silicon burning, in which the byproducts of one nuclear fuel become, after ...
The majority of these occur within stars, and the chain of those nuclear fusion processes are known as hydrogen burning (via the proton–proton chain or the CNO cycle), helium burning, carbon burning, neon burning, oxygen burning and silicon burning. These processes are able to create elements up to and including iron and nickel.
Illustration of a proton–proton chain, from hydrogen forming deuterium, helium-3, and regular helium-4. Nuclear transmutation is the conversion of one chemical element or an isotope into another chemical element. [1] Nuclear transmutation occurs in any process where the number of protons or neutrons in the nucleus of an atom is changed.
In all cases, helium is fused to carbon via the triple-alpha process, i.e., three helium nuclei are transformed into carbon via 8 Be. [35]: 30 This can then form oxygen, neon, and heavier elements via the alpha process. In this way, the alpha process preferentially produces elements with even numbers of protons by the capture of helium nuclei.
Carbon-carbon bonds are strong and stable. Through catenation, carbon forms a countless number of compounds. A tally of unique compounds shows that more contain carbon than do not. [88] A similar claim can be made for hydrogen because most organic compounds contain hydrogen chemically bonded to carbon or another common element like oxygen or ...
Once temperatures are lowered, out of every 16 nucleons (2 neutrons and 14 protons), 4 of these (25% of the total particles and total mass) combine quickly into one helium-4 nucleus. This produces one helium for every 12 hydrogens, resulting in a universe that is a little over 8% helium by number of atoms, and 25% helium by mass. One analogy is ...