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Chemical element
rare-earth element
Chemical element, also called element ,  any substance that cannot be decomposed into simpler substances by ordinary chemical processes. Elements are the fundamental materials of which all matter is composed.
This article considers the origin of the elements and their abundances throughout the universe. The geochemical distribution of these elementary substances in the Earth’s crust and interior is treated in some detail, as is their occurrence in the hydrosphere and atmosphere. The article also discusses the periodic law and the tabular arrangement of the elements based on it. For detailed information about the compounds of the elements, see chemical compound .
The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica
General observations
At present there are 118 known chemical elements. About 20 percent of them do not exist in nature (or are present only in trace amounts) and are known only because they have been synthetically prepared in the laboratory. Of the known elements, 11 (hydrogen, nitrogen , oxygen, fluorine , chlorine , and the six noble gases) are gases under ordinary conditions, two (bromine and mercury) are liquids (two more, cesium and gallium , melt at about or just above room temperature), and the rest are solids. Elements can combine with one another to form a wide variety of more complex substances called compounds . The number of possible compounds is almost infinite; perhaps a million are known, and more are being discovered every day. When two or more elements combine to form a compound , they lose their separate identities, and the product has characteristics quite different from those of the constituent elements. The gaseous elements hydrogen and oxygen, for example, with quite different properties, can combine to form the compound water , which has altogether different properties from either oxygen or hydrogen. Water clearly is not an element because it consists of, and actually can be decomposed chemically into, the two substances hydrogen and oxygen; these two substances, however, are elements because they cannot be decomposed into simpler substances by any known chemical process. Most samples of naturally occurring matter are physical mixtures of compounds. Seawater, for example, is a mixture of water and a large number of other compounds, the most common of which is sodium chloride , or table salt. Mixtures differ from compounds in that they can be separated into their component parts by physical processes; for example, the simple process of evaporation separates water from the other compounds in seawater.
Historical development of the concept of element
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principles of physical science
The modern concept of an element is unambiguous, depending as it does on the use of chemical and physical processes as a means of discriminating elements from compounds and mixtures. The existence of fundamental substances from which all matter is made, however, has been the basis of much theoretical speculation since the dawn of history. The ancient Greek philosophers Thales, Anaximenes, and Heracleitus each suggested that all matter is composed of one essential principle—or element. Thales believed this element to be water; Anaximenes suggested air; and Heracleitus, fire. Another Greek philosopher, Empedocles , expressed a different belief—that all substances are composed of four elements: air , earth, fire, and water. Aristotle agreed and emphasized that these four elements are bearers of fundamental properties, dryness and heat being associated with fire, heat and moisture with air, moisture and cold with water, and cold and dryness with earth. In the thinking of these philosophers all other substances were supposed to be combinations of the four elements, and the properties of substances were thought to reflect their elemental compositions . Thus, Greek thought encompassed the idea that all matter could be understood in terms of elemental qualities; in this sense, the elements themselves were thought of as nonmaterial. The Greek concept of an element, which was accepted for nearly 2,000 years, contained only one aspect of the modern definition—namely, that elements have characteristic properties.
In the latter part of the Middle Ages, as alchemists became more sophisticated in their knowledge of chemical processes, the Greek concepts of the composition of matter became less satisfactory. Additional elemental qualities were introduced to accommodate newly discovered chemical transformations. Thus, sulfur came to represent the quality of combustibility, mercury that of volatility or fluidity, and salt that of fixity in fire (or incombustibility). These three alchemical elements, or principles, also represented abstractions of properties reflecting the nature of matter, not physical substances.
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The important difference between a mixture and a chemical compound eventually was understood, and in 1661 the English chemist Robert Boyle recognized the fundamental nature of a chemical element. He argued that the four Greek elements could not be the real chemical elements because they cannot combine to form other substances nor can they be extracted from other substances. Boyle stressed the physical nature of elements and related them to the compounds they formed in the modern operational way.
Periodic Table of the Elements
In 1789 the French chemist Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier published what might be considered the first list of elemental substances based on Boyle’s definition. Lavoisier’s list of elements was established on the basis of a careful, quantitative study of decomposition and recombination reactions. Because he could not devise experiments to decompose certain substances, or to form them from known elements, Lavoisier included in his list of elements such substances as lime, alumina , and silica , which now are known to be very stable compounds. That Lavoisier still retained a measure of influence from the ancient Greek concept of the elements is indicated by his inclusion of light and heat (caloric) among the elements.
Seven substances recognized today as elements—gold, silver , copper , iron , lead , tin , and mercury—were known to the ancients because they occur in nature in relatively pure form. They are mentioned in the Bible and in an early Hindu medical treatise , the Caraka-samhita. Sixteen other elements were discovered in the second half of the 18th century, when methods of separating elements from their compounds became better understood. Eighty-two more followed after the introduction of quantitative analytical methods.
The atomic nature of the elements
Paralleling the development of the concept of elements was an understanding of the nature of matter. At various times in history, matter has been considered to be either continuous or discontinuous. Continuous matter is postulated to be homogeneous and divisible without limit, each part exhibiting identical properties regardless of size. This was essentially the point of view taken by Aristotle when he associated his elemental qualities with continuous matter. Discontinuous matter, on the other hand, is conceived of as particulate—that is, divisible only up to a point, the point at which certain basic units called atoms are reached. According to this concept, also known as the atomic hypothesis , subdivision of the basic unit (atom) could give rise only to particles with profoundly different properties. Atoms, then, would be the ultimate carriers of the properties associated with bulk matter.
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The atomic hypothesis is usually credited to the Greek philosopher Democritus, who considered all matter to be composed of atoms of the four elements—earth, air, fire, and water. But Aristotle’s concept of continuous matter generally prevailed and influenced thought until experimental findings in the 16th century forced a return to the atomic theory. Two types of experimental evidence gave support to the atomic hypothesis: first, the detailed behaviour of gaseous substances and, second, the quantitative weight relationships observed with a variety of chemical reactions. The English chemist John Dalton was the first to explain the empirically derived laws of chemical combination by postulating the existence of atoms with unique sets of properties. At the time, chemical combining power (valence) and relative atomic weights were the properties of most interest. Subsequently numerous independent experimental verifications of the atomic hypothesis were carried out, and today it is universally accepted. Indeed, in 1969 individual uranium and thorium atoms were actually observed by means of an electron microscope.
The structure of atoms
Atoms of elemental substances are themselves complex structures composed of more fundamental particles called protons , neutrons , and electrons. Experimental evidence indicates that, within an atom, a small nucleus , which generally contains both protons and neutrons, is surrounded by a swarm, or cloud, of electrons. The fundamental properties of these subatomic particles are their weight and electrical charge . Whereas protons carry a positive charge and electrons a negative one, neutrons are electrically neutral. The diameter of an atom (about 10−8 centimetre) is 10,000 times larger than that of its nucleus. Neutrons and protons, which are collectively called nucleons , have relative weights of approximately one atomic mass unit, whereas an electron is only about 1/2000 as heavy. Because neutrons and protons occur in the nucleus, virtually all of the mass of the atom is concentrated there. The number of protons in the nucleus is equivalent to the atomic number of the element. The total number of protons and neutrons is called the mass number because it equals the relative weight of that atom compared to other atoms. Because the atom itself is electrically neutral, the atomic number represents not only the number of protons, or positive charges, in the nucleus but also the number of electrons, or negative charges, in the extranuclear region of the atom.
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The chemical characteristics of elements are intimately related to the number and arrangement of electrons in their atoms. Thus, elements are completely distinguishable from each other by their atomic numbers. The realization that such is the case leads to another definition of an element, namely, a substance, all atoms of which have the same atomic number.
The existence of isotopes
Careful experimental examination of naturally occurring samples of many pure elements shows that not all the atoms present have the same atomic weight , even though they all have the same atomic number. Such a situation can occur only if the atoms have different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei. Such groups of atoms—with the same atomic number but with different relative weights—are called isotopes. The number of isotopic forms that a naturally occurring element possesses ranges from one (e.g., fluorine) to as many as ten (e.g., tin); most of the elements have at least two isotopes. The atomic weight of an element is usually determined from large numbers of atoms containing the natural distribution of isotopes, and, therefore, it represents the average isotopic weight of the atoms constituting the sample. More recently, precision mass-spectrometric methods have been used to determine the distribution and weights of isotopes in various naturally occurring samples of elements.
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The fundamental reaction that produces the huge amounts of energy radiated by the Sun and most other stars is the fusion of the lightest element, hydrogen, its nucleus having a single proton, into helium, the second lightest and second most abundant, with a nucleus consisting of two protons and two neutrons. In many stars the production of helium is followed by the fusion of helium into heavier elements, up to iron. The still heavier elements cannot be made in energy-releasing fusion reactions; an input of energy is required to produce them.
The proportion of different elements within a star—i.e., its chemical composition—is gradually changed by nuclear fusion reactions. This change is initially concentrated in the central regions of the star where it cannot be directly observed, but it alters some observable properties of the star, such as brightness and surface temperature , and these alterations are taken as evidence of what is going on in the interior. Some stars become unstable and discharge some transmuted matter into interstellar space; this leads to a change in the chemical composition of the interstellar medium and of any stars subsequently formed. The main problem concerned with the origin of the chemical elements is to decide to what extent the chemical composition of the stars seen today differs from the initial chemical composition of the universe and to determine where the change in chemical composition has been produced. Reference is made in this article to the chemical composition of the universe, but most of the observations refer to our own and neighbouring galaxies.
Cosmic abundances of the elements
The relative numbers of atoms of the various elements are usually described as the abundances of the elements. The chief sources of data from which information is gained about present-day abundances of the elements are observations of the chemical composition of stars and gas clouds in the Galaxy, which contains the solar system and part of which is visible to the naked eye as the Milky Way; of neighbouring galaxies; of the Earth, Moon, and meteorites; and of the cosmic rays.
Stars and gas clouds
Atoms absorb and emit light, and the atoms of each element do so at specific and characteristic wavelengths. A spectroscope spreads out these wavelengths of light from any source into a spectrum of bright-coloured lines, a different pattern identifying each element. When light from an unknown source is analyzed in a spectroscope, the different patterns of bright lines in the spectrum reveal which elements emitted the light. Such a pattern is called an emission , or bright-line, spectrum. When light passes through a gas or cloud at a lower temperature than the light source, the gas absorbs at its identifying wavelengths, and a dark-line, or absorption, spectrum will be formed.
Thus, absorption and emission lines in the spectrum of light from stars yield information concerning the chemical composition of the source of light and of the chemical composition of clouds through which the light has traveled. The absorption lines may be formed either by interstellar clouds or by the cool outer layers of the stars. The chemical composition of a star is obtained by a study of absorption lines formed in its atmosphere.
The presence of an element can, therefore, be detected easily, but it is more difficult to determine how much of it there is. The intensity of an absorption line depends not only on the total number of atoms of the element in the atmosphere of the star but also on the number of these atoms that are in a state capable of absorbing radiation of the relevant wavelength and the probability of absorption occurring. The absorption probability can, in principle, be measured in the laboratory, but the whole physical structure of the atmosphere must be calculated to determine the number of absorbing atoms. Naturally, it is easier to study the chemical composition of the Sun than of other stars, but, even for the Sun, after many decades of study, there are still significant uncertainties of chemical composition. The spectra of stars differ considerably, and originally it was believed that this indicated a wide variety of chemical composition. Subsequently, it was realized that it is the surface temperature of a star that largely determines which spectral lines are excited and that most stars have similar chemical compositions.
There are, however, differences in chemical composition among stars, and these differences are important in a study of the origin of the elements. Studies of the processes that operate during stellar evolution enable estimates to be made of the ages of stars. There is, for example, a clear tendency for very old stars to have smaller quantities of elements heavier than helium than do younger stars. This suggests that the Galaxy originally contained little of the so-called heavy elements (elements beyond helium in the periodic table); and the variation of chemical composition with age suggests that heavy elements must have been produced more rapidly in the Galaxy’s early history than now. Observations are also beginning to indicate that chemical composition is dependent on position in the Galaxy as well as age, with a higher heavy-element content near the galactic centre.
In addition to stars, the Galaxy contains interstellar gas and dust. Some of the gas is very cold, but some forms hot clouds, the gaseous nebulae, the chemical composition of which can be studied in some detail. The chemical composition of the gas seems to resemble that of young stars. This is in agreement with the theory that young stars are formed from the interstellar gas.
Cosmic rays
High-energy electrons and atomic nuclei known as cosmic rays reach the Earth from all directions in the Galaxy. Their chemical composition can be observed only to a limited extent, but this can give some information about their place of origin and possibly about the origin of the chemical elements.
The cosmic rays are observed to be proportionately richer in heavy elements than are the stars, and they also contain more of the light elements lithium, beryllium, and boron, which are very rare in stars. One particularly interesting suggestion is that transuranium nuclei may have been detected in the cosmic rays. Uranium is element 92, the most massive naturally occurring on Earth; 20 elements beyond uranium (called the transuranium series) have been created artificially. All transuranium nuclei are highly unstable, which would seem to indicate that the cosmic rays must have been produced in the not too distant past.
Roger John Tayler
Solar system
Direct observations of chemical composition can be made for the Earth, the Moon, and meteorites, although there are some problems of interpretation. The chemical composition of Earth’s crust , oceans, and atmosphere can be studied, but this is only a minute fraction of the mass of Earth, and there are many composition differences even within this small sample. Some information about the chemical properties of Earth’s unobserved interior can be obtained by the study of the motion of earthquake waves and by Earth’s magnetic field , which originates in the interior (see below Geochemical distribution of the elements ).
Until recently, more was known about element abundances in distant stars than in Earth’s nearest neighbour, the Moon. The lunar landings have provided samples that have been intensively analyzed in many laboratories throughout the world. The data for the Apollo 11 material, collected in the Sea of Tranquility (Mare Tranquillitatis), are given in the Table. Analyses of Apollo 12 collections are similar for most of the elements. Comparison of the analytical data with those for carbonaceous chondrites (a type of meteorite that provides a good average sample of nonvolatile solar system material) shows that the lunar material has undergone marked geochemical fractionation (segregation of elements). Meteorites suffer from heating in Earth’s atmosphere, so that what is found on Earth is not necessarily the original chemical composition of the meteorites, especially for the volatiles, light gases that are easily lost. When allowance is made for the loss of volatile light gases and for effects of chemical separation, it seems quite possible that the overall chemical composition of Earth, the Moon, the Sun, and the meteorites is essentially the same and that they have a common origin.
Atomic weights of the chemical elements
element
118
(294)
Elements with an atomic weight given in square brackets have an atomic weight that is given as a range. Elements with an atomic weight in parentheses list the weight of the isotope with the longest half-life.
Sources: Commission on Isotopic Abundances and Atomic Weights, "Atomic Weights of the Elements 2015"; and National Nuclear Data Center, Brookhaven National Laboratory, NuDat 2.6.
If elemental abundances are the same in Earth and stars, isotopic abundances are likely to be the same. Theories predict the relative production of the different isotopes, and it is desirable to be able to compare these with observation. The study of terrestrial abundances of radioactive elements yields information about the age of the solar system, which is discussed below.
Roger John Tayler The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica
Summary of observations
The chemical composition of all objects in the universe is not quite the same, and not all elements can be observed in any one object, even if they are present. Nevertheless, the compositions of many objects are sufficiently similar to make it worthwhile to try to construct a typical table of abundances. Such compilations have been made by several authors and the best known is the work of the American physicists Hans Suess and Harold Urey. Although it dates from 1956, and later compilations differ in some details, its general character is not in dispute.
The main properties shown in the abundance table are quite clear. Hydrogen and helium are much more common than all of the other elements. There is a gradual decline toward higher atomic number with a great underabundance of lithium, beryllium, and boron. There is a significant peak in the region of iron, the element with the highest fractional binding energy, and the decline continues to higher atomic number with some subsidiary peaks. These peaks are associated with nuclei containing 50, 82, or 126 neutrons; the theory of nuclear structure predicts that these nuclei should be particularly stable, and these numbers are known as “magic” numbers .
Processes producing heavier elements
As mentioned above, energy can be released by either nuclear fusion or fission reactions and there will be a tendency for material to be gradually converted into elements with maximum binding energy. As observations suggest that hydrogen and helium are much more abundant than other elements, and there is an abundance peak near iron, it is generally supposed that heavy elements have been built up from light elements. In addition, some sites in which element transmutations can occur are known; for example, the interiors of stars tend to get hotter as they evolve, and a succession of nuclear reactions provides the energy that they radiate. Whether or not stars are the site of major nucleosynthesis , some nucleosynthesis certainly occurs there.
Atomic nuclei interact through two strong forces . Because they have positive electric charges, they repel one another, but there is also a very short-range strong nuclear interaction that is attractive. This may cause fusion reactions to occur if the nuclei ever approach close enough for it to be operative. To overcome the electrical repulsion, the particles must be moving rapidly, as they will be if the material is at a high temperature. The overcoming of the electrical repulsion leads to what are known as thermonuclear reactions . Heavy nuclei have higher electric charges than light nuclei, and a higher temperature is required for reactions between them. The rate of thermonuclear reactions depends on density as well as temperature, but the temperature dependence is much more critical.
Reaction stages reflecting increasing temperature
If one imagines a mixture of light elements gradually heated up, a succession of nuclear reactions occurs that is described below.
Hydrogen burning
Hydrogen is converted into helium by a succession of nuclear reactions that change four protons into a helium nucleus, two positrons, and two neutrinos. (A positron is a particle like an electron but with a positive charge; a neutrino is a particle with no charge and negligible mass.) Two different reaction chains exist. In the proton–proton chain the helium nucleus is built up directly from protons. In another series of reactions that involve carbon and nitrogen, called the carbon–nitrogen cycle , the nuclei of carbon and nitrogen are used as catalysts to transform hydrogen into helium; protons are successively added to carbon or nitrogen until a helium nucleus can be emitted by them and the original carbon or nitrogen nucleus reproduced. Both of these reactions occur at temperatures of about 10,000,000 to 20,000,000 K (10,000,000 K is approximately 18,000,000° F).
Helium burning
At temperatures of about 100,000,000 to 200,000,000 K (1 to 2 × 108 K), three helium nuclei can fuse to form carbon. This reaction takes place in the following way: two helium nuclei combine to form an unstable isotope of beryllium, which has an extremely short life; rarely, a third helium nucleus can be added to form carbon before the beryllium decays. Subsequently, a fourth helium nucleus may combine with carbon to give oxygen. The relative amounts of carbon and oxygen produced depend on the temperature and density at which helium is burned.
Carbon and oxygen burning
At temperatures between 5 × 108 K and 109 K, pairs of carbon and oxygen nuclei can fuse to produce such elements as magnesium, sodium , silicon , and sulfur.
Silicon burning
Further heating of the material leads to a complicated set of nuclear reactions whereby the elements produced in carbon and oxygen burning are gradually converted into the elements of maximum fractional binding energy; e.g., chromium , manganese , iron, cobalt , and nickel . These reactions have collectively been given the name silicon burning because an important part of the process is the breaking down of silicon nuclei into helium nuclei, which are added in turn to other silicon nuclei to produce the elements noted above.
Reversible nuclear reaction equilibrium
Finally, at temperatures around 4 × 109 K, an approximation to nuclear statistical equilibrium may be reached. At this stage, although nuclear reactions continue to occur, each nuclear reaction and its inverse occur equally rapidly, and there is no further overall change of chemical composition. Thus, the gradual production of heavy elements by nuclear fusion reactions is balanced by disintegrations, and the buildup process effectively ceases once the material is predominantly in the form of iron and its neighbouring elements of the periodic table . Indeed, if further heating occurs, a conversion of heavy nuclei to light nuclei follows in much the same way as occurs in the ionization of atoms when they are heated up. The elements heavier than iron cannot be produced by fusion reactions between light elements; an input of energy is required to produce them.
Neutron capture
It is believed that these heavier elements, and some isotopes of lighter elements, have been produced by successive capture of neutrons. Two processes of neutron capture may be distinguished: the r -process, rapid neutron capture ; and the s -process, slow neutron capture . If neutrons are added to a stable nucleus, it is not long before the product nucleus becomes unstable and the neutron is converted into a proton. Outside a nucleus, a neutron decays into a proton and an electron by a process called beta decay (β-decay). Inside a nucleus it can be stable if the nucleus does not contain too many neutrons. In slow neutron capture, neutrons are added at a rate such that whenever an unstable nucleus is formed, it beta-decays before another neutron can be added. If neutrons can be added more rapidly, as in the r -process, the unstable nuclei formed cannot decay before additional neutrons are added until a nucleus is eventually produced that will not accept a further neutron. This nucleus, however, will eventually be subject to beta decay, thus permitting further neutron capture.
It can be imagined that neutron capture could proceed at an arbitrary rate, giving a mixture of the two processes, but, when the possible sites where neutron-capture reactions could take place are considered, it appears that a fairly clean-cut division between the two processes can be made. If the neutron capture occurs during a quiet stage of stellar evolution , there will be ample time for beta decays to occur, and an s -process will result. If neutron capture occurs in an explosive situation, the time scale will be so short that the reaction will have to be an r -process. The r -process produces the most neutron-rich isotopes of the heavy elements, while those isotopes produced by the s -process tend to have relatively more protons. The naturally radioactive nuclei are produced by the r -process. The neutron-capture processes appear to give a simple explanation of the magic-number abundance peaks mentioned earlier.
Two small groups of nuclei are not readily fitted into either the sequence of nuclear fusion reactions or the neutron-capture processes. These are nuclei with very low relative abundances. One group consists of the light-nuclei lithium , beryllium , and boron, together with the heavy stable isotope of hydrogen, deuterium . These nuclei are destroyed by nuclear fusion reactions at temperatures lower than that needed to convert hydrogen into helium, and they are bypassed by the production of carbon from helium. The other group consists of the most proton-rich isotopes of some heavy elements, which cannot be produced by the addition of neutrons. Two rather rare or inefficient processes would suffice to produce these isotopes, but there is no complete agreement about what these processes are. It has been suggested that the heavy, proton-rich isotopes might be produced by a process of proton capture and that lithium, beryllium, and boron have been produced by the breakdown of heavier nuclei. A recent suggestion is that they are produced in interstellar space by collisions between cosmic-ray protons and interstellar carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen.
Regions of element synthesis
A discussion of how the present chemical composition of the universe has arisen brings to light two distinct questions: what was the initial chemical composition and what alterations have occurred since creation. Ideally, by working backwards, the initial composition can be deduced from the present composition and a life-history, but this approach is overambitious. The initial composition predicted by simple cosmological theory can then be tested for compatibility with present observations. Element production in the universe as a whole can be discussed first; production in stars and other objects in the Galaxy is treated in the sections that follow.
Element production in the universe as a whole
Hydrogen and helium are overwhelmingly the most abundant elements in the objects of which there is direct knowledge, and, as some buildup of heavy elements occurs in stars, the working hypothesis is usually adopted that the initially created matter contained only light elements.
Observations of distant galaxies suggest that the universe is expanding and that galaxies may have been very close together at some time. In the big-bang theory it is assumed that the universe was created at that time, 13.8 billion years ago, and that at its creation the universe was very hot as well as very dense. Nuclear reactions in the early stages of the expansion lead to a rather well-defined initial chemical composition for the universe.
There are two particular reasons why the big-bang theory is used to explain the production of the first chemical elements. The first is concerned with the observed helium content of objects in the Galaxy. It is not always easy to estimate the helium abundance in a star or gas cloud, but most estimates have indicated helium abundances greater than 25 percent by mass. Such values would fit in well with most of the helium being primeval and a small admixture having been produced in stars in the galactic lifetime. The second reason for interest in the big-bang theory is the discovery that very short radio waves, microwaves , are observed to be reaching Earth from all directions in space. According to the big-bang theory, the universe was filled with radiation in its early stages and most of this radiation has never subsequently been absorbed. As the universe has expanded, the radiation has been shifted toward longer wavelengths by the Doppler effect , a change in wavelength brought about by motion of the source with respect to the observer. As a result of this effect, the radiation created by the big bang would be expected to appear today as microwaves of just the type that have been observed.
The big-bang theory not only predicts that all objects, except those in which the helium could have been destroyed, should have a minimum of about 25 percent helium but that the microwave radiation should have a particular distribution with frequency known as the Planck form. Recent determinations of the primordial helium abundance have converged on a value of 25 percent, and observations with the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite have shown the frequency distribution of the microwave background radiation to be a perfect Planck form.
Element production in stars
A substantial amount of nucleosynthesis must have occurred in stars. It was stated above that a succession of nuclear fusion reactions takes place as the temperature of the stellar material rises. Theories of stellar evolution indicate that the internal temperatures of stars first rise during their life history and eventually fall after reaching a maximum value. For very low-mass stars, the maximum temperature may be too low for any significant nuclear reactions to occur, but for stars as massive as the Sun or greater, most of the sequence of nuclear fusion reactions described above can occur. Moreover, a time scale for stellar evolution is derived in theories of stellar evolution that show that stars substantially more massive than the Sun can have completed their active life history in a time short compared with the age of the universe derived from the big-bang cosmological theory.
This result implies that stars more massive than the Sun, which were formed very early in the life history of the Galaxy, could have produced some of the heavy elements that are seen today but that stars much less massive than the Sun could have played no part in this production. Unless the Galaxy is very much older than is generally believed, such low mass stars, even if formed with the Galaxy, would still be at an early stage in their evolution because changes within them proceed at a relatively slow pace. If there has been substantial heavy-element production in stars, a sufficient fraction of the earliest stars formed must have been relatively massive.
If substantial nucleosynthesis has occurred in stars, could such a process have produced all of the heavy elements that are observed today and possibly all of the helium inside the stars? A vital point is the following: if the heavy elements produced in stars are to influence what is observed, they must be expelled from the interiors of the stars in which they are produced and incorporated into future generations of stars, in which they can be observed subsequently. Unfortunately, direct knowledge of mass loss from stars is fragmentary; steady loss of mass is observed in some stars, and a few are observed to explode catastrophically, as in the explosion of a supernova . At present it is only possible for a very rough estimate to be made of the rate of exchange of matter between stars and the interstellar medium.
Supernovae are believed to be stars reaching the end of their evolution, and many astronomers believe that a supernova explosion is the main process whereby heavy elements produced inside stars are returned to the interstellar medium. In addition, because a supernova explosion is the most violent type of event regularly observed in galaxies, it is believed that cosmic rays must also be produced in the explosion. Some rough estimates follow. The mass of the Galaxy is believed to be between 1011 and 2 × 1011 solar masses, and perhaps 2 × 109 solar masses are heavy elements. If these heavy elements were produced steadily in a galactic lifetime of about 1010 years, one-fifth of a solar mass of heavy elements must have been produced each year. Counts of supernovae in nearby galaxies suggest that there might be one supernova explosion per large galaxy about every 30 years. If all the heavy elements are produced in supernovae, about six solar masses are required from each explosion. Although these numbers are very uncertain, this amount seems too large, but it could be reduced if the frequency of supernovae is very much higher in young galaxies. The possibility remains that a significant quantity of heavy elements may be produced by a very large number of less spectacular stars or by much more massive objects that are mentioned below.
If there has been a gradual production of heavy elements, recently formed stars should contain more than old stars. It is possible to identify some stars which have formed quite recently. The light output of stars rises as a rather high power of their mass according to a mass–luminosity relation that is valid for the vast majority of stars whose masses are known, while their supply of nuclear energy is only directly proportional to the mass. This means that the more massive stars complete their life history much more rapidly than low-mass stars and that the brightest stars observed today cannot be more than a few million years old at the most. The heavy-element content of the young stars is greater than that of many old stars, perhaps because of a gradual increase in the heavy-element content of the interstellar medium from which stars are formed. Observations show that only the very oldest stars have an extremely small amount of very heavy elements in their visible layers, and it appears that element production must have been much more rapid when the Galaxy was young than it is now. There may indeed have been a much higher frequency of supernovae. Recent observations suggest also that chemical composition is a function of a star’s place of origin as well as its age. In particular, the production of heavy elements may have been higher near the centre of the Galaxy than elsewhere (see below Element production in massive objects).
Although the first nuclear reaction to occur in stars is the conversion of hydrogen into helium, all of the helium that is observed today can hardly have been produced in ordinary stars, the more so if all objects contain more than about 25 percent helium by mass. Considering the relative amounts of helium and heavier elements, observations indicate that the total mass of helium may be ten times greater than that of the heavier elements; if all elements other than hydrogen have been produced in stars, the relative production of helium and heavier elements must have just this value. As stars evolve, however, the conversion of hydrogen into helium is followed by the conversion of helium into heavier elements. At all stages in a star’s evolution there will be a region where the temperature is suitable for the conversion of hydrogen into helium, but it appears that there will be only a thin shell of helium separating the regions in which hydrogen has not yet been converted into helium and the region where helium has been burned into heavy elements. The possible chemical composition of a highly evolved star is a series of layers of different chemical composition. The central region would contain elements such as iron and nickel with layers of successively lighter elements surrounding it and the outermost layer containing essentially only hydrogen or hydrogen and helium. A very special type of mass loss would be required to expel 10 times as much helium as heavy elements from these different layers into interstellar space.
It is also difficult to see how the full amount of helium could have been produced. If a quarter of the galactic mass, originally hydrogen, has been converted into helium, it can be shown that essentially all of the mass must have passed through at least one generation of massive stars. The total energy release under such a circumstance would imply that the Galaxy was very much more luminous in the past—one hundred times more luminous for the first 10 percent of its lifetime, for example.
Element production in massive objects
Although there is no direct evidence for the existence of stars more than about 50 times as massive as the Sun, there is no obvious reason why much more massive objects should not exist. If they were sufficiently massive, they would not behave as ordinary stars because their gravitational attraction would be so strong that not even the energy released by conversion of hydrogen into helium would prevent such supermassive stars from continuing to collapse rapidly. According to present theoretical ideas, if such a collapse is spherically symmetrical, nothing can prevent the supermassive object from collapsing to an extremely high or infinite density; but, if it is asymmetrical—because it is, for example, rapidly rotating—there is some possibility that the catastrophic collapse, called an implosion, might be followed by explosion. At the high-density, high-temperature phase of such an object, some nucleosynthesis (manufacture of nuclei from smaller nuclei) would occur, primarily of helium but with a small amount of heavier elements according to the arguments given early in this article. Such objects have been suggested as a possible important source of helium.
There is some observational evidence that explosions on a very much greater scale than single supernovae are occurring in galaxies. In some peculiar galaxies that are strong emitters of radio waves, there is evidence that explosions have thrown a large quantity of gas hundreds of thousands of light-years into intergalactic space. Such galactic explosions may not be related to the theoretical supermassive objects mentioned above, but it is difficult to believe that some nucleosynthesis does not take place during the phases of extreme conditions that must occur in such objects. The suggestion that heavy-element abundances may be higher near the centre of the Galaxy could be related to a past explosion there.
Radioactive chronologies
Radioactive elements in the Earth, the Moon, and in meteorites can provide useful information about the ages of these objects and about the dates of formation of the heavy elements themselves. The elements uranium and thorium gradually decay into lead, different isotopes of lead arising from the various isotopes of uranium and thorium; some isotopes of lead are, however, not produced by any radioactive decay process. When the rocks of the Moon or the Earth’s crust or the meteorites solidified, further chemical separation of the radioactive elements and their decay products was prevented. By studying the relative amounts of the radioactive isotopes and their decay products, it is possible to obtain an estimate of when the rocks solidified. Estimates can also be made using radioactive isotopes other than uranium and thorium.
The results of these discussions indicate that the meteorites, or at least the parent body of the meteorites, solidified between 4.5 × 109 and 4.6 × 109 years ago. It is possible to speak with such confidence of this age because two isotopes of uranium and one of thorium have very different decay times that bracket that value. There is no unique age for the rocks of the Earth’s crust because there has been considerable volcanic activity during the Earth’s history and rocks have solidified at all stages. All indications are that the oldest rocks have ages of the same order as the ages of the parent bodies of the meteorites. Only a very small region of the Moon’s surface has been studied so far, but it has been found to have very old rocks of age up to about 4.5 × 109 years. No conclusions can be drawn about the date of solidification of the Moon from these few observations, as nothing is known about its past geological history, but they are certainly not inconsistent with the view that the Earth, the Moon, and meteorites have a similar age and origin.
It has also been found possible to obtain information about the time of formation of the radioactive elements. Assuming that both radioactive nuclei and their stable neighbours are produced by the neutron-capture process discussed earlier, theory predicts a relative production rate for all of the nuclei. The radioactive nuclei can be divided into three groups: short-lived, medium-lived, and long-lived, where short-lived means considerably less than the believed age of the universe and long-lived means comparable with that age. If radioactive nuclei are produced and decay steadily, then at some point in time the total amount of a short-lived isotope reaches a steady value. In meteorites, one can study the decay products of such short-lived nuclei and can discover their abundance when the meteorites were formed. This amount is lower than the expected value, suggesting that nucleosynthesis ceased in the solar system material about 2 × 108 years before the meteorites and planets solidified.
Study of the decay products of nuclei with medium decay rates indicates that their abundance is higher than if nucleosynthesis has occurred at a constant rate throughout galactic history. This suggests that the solar system material was significantly enriched in heavy elements shortly before the cessation of nucleosynthesis—that is, before the Sun and planets were formed. Finally, the very long-lived isotopes give information about the total time scale of nucleosynthesis that is not inconsistent with the galactic age estimated by other methods.
Although there is not unanimous agreement concerning these results, it appears that it is, in principle, possible to obtain a considerable amount of information about the past rate of nucleosynthesis and possibly about the types of objects in which it has occurred. In particular, it may eventually be possible to decide whether most element production has occurred in a large number of supernovae or in a much smaller number of massive objects.