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In astrophysics, stellar nucleosynthesis is the creation of chemical elements by nuclear fusion reactions within stars. Stellar nucleosynthesis has occurred since the original creation of hydrogen, helium and lithium during the Big Bang. As a predictive theory, it yields accurate estimates of the observed abundances of the elements.
The first direct proof that nucleosynthesis occurs in stars was the astronomical observation that interstellar gas has become enriched with heavy elements as time passed. As a result, stars that were born from it late in the galaxy, formed with much higher initial heavy element abundances than those that had formed earlier.
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 slow neutron-capture process, or s-process, is a series of reactions in nuclear astrophysics that occur in stars, particularly asymptotic giant branch stars.The s-process is responsible for the creation (nucleosynthesis) of approximately half the atomic nuclei heavier than iron.
It was thus postulated that another nucleosynthesis process occurring outside stars was necessary to explain their existence in the universe. This process is now known to occur in cosmic rays, where lower temperature and particle density favor reactions leading to the synthesis of lithium, beryllium, and boron. [3]
Based on known resonances, by 1952 it seemed impossible for ordinary stars to produce carbon as well as any heavier element. [14] Nuclear physicist William Alfred Fowler had noted the beryllium-8 resonance, and Edwin Salpeter had calculated the reaction rate for 8 Be, 12 C, and 16 O nucleosynthesis taking this resonance into account.
In physical cosmology, Big Bang nucleosynthesis (also known as primordial nucleosynthesis, and abbreviated as BBN) [1] is the production of nuclei other than those of the lightest isotope of hydrogen (hydrogen-1, 1 H, having a single proton as a nucleus) during the early phases of the universe.
In stars, rapid nucleosynthesis proceeds by adding helium nuclei (alpha particles) to heavier nuclei. As mentioned above, this process ends around atomic mass 56. [11] Decay of nickel-56 explains the large amount of iron-56 seen in metallic meteorites and the cores of rocky planets.