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- TL;DR Summary
- Where do all our atoms originate?
I was thinking about deuterium and that it is not made in stars (too reactive/unstable) and not made in super nova as far as I understand, so I am presuming all of it was made in the first few minutes of the universe and has been with us ever since as it comes from no-where else I am aware of.
Is that true?
Based on that, and that the water in us contains an amount of deuterium, it means some of our atoms were made in that small space that was the first few minutes of the big bang when the average energy was enough to fuse protons, just before it cooled off too far that the proton fusion stopped.
It seems a sobering thought to me.
Most of the rest of our atoms as we know is then down to those made in previous supernovas and reaccumulated into the substances of the solar system.
What I was pondering was; is there any way to determine the percentages of our constituent atoms by their origin?;
What percentage of our atoms is Big-Bang-primordial?
How many supernovas provided the rest of our atoms?
Are there any atoms from any other origin, such as terrestrial natural nuclear decay, or cosmogenic activity in the upper atmosphere?
I'm not thinking that any degree of precision can be achieved in the above discussion, and of course ultimately all the material we are made of (whether or not its remained in the same atomic state) has derived from "time zero", but I thought a discussion about the qualitative aspects of the locations where our atoms gained their current form might be interesting.
Is that true?
Based on that, and that the water in us contains an amount of deuterium, it means some of our atoms were made in that small space that was the first few minutes of the big bang when the average energy was enough to fuse protons, just before it cooled off too far that the proton fusion stopped.
It seems a sobering thought to me.
Most of the rest of our atoms as we know is then down to those made in previous supernovas and reaccumulated into the substances of the solar system.
What I was pondering was; is there any way to determine the percentages of our constituent atoms by their origin?;
What percentage of our atoms is Big-Bang-primordial?
How many supernovas provided the rest of our atoms?
Are there any atoms from any other origin, such as terrestrial natural nuclear decay, or cosmogenic activity in the upper atmosphere?
I'm not thinking that any degree of precision can be achieved in the above discussion, and of course ultimately all the material we are made of (whether or not its remained in the same atomic state) has derived from "time zero", but I thought a discussion about the qualitative aspects of the locations where our atoms gained their current form might be interesting.