Creating Elements after BB: Where did the Supernova's Go?(Vanity)

NA | 2007/02/15 | Robert A. Cook

[Robert A Cook PE]

We exist, therefore we question.

Or at least, that paraphrases (poorly) an old quote from an old scholar...

We know the masses and general composition of the four inner (rocky) planets in our solar system, and from basic chemistry, we know the number of atoms in a gram of any material.

Multiplying Avogadro's number x the mass of these four planets, dividing by a weighted average atomic weight for the materials in each planet, we get about 3 x 10^ 50 heavy nuclei produced since creation/the big bang.

Take your pick, that's the number of atomic nuclei we have to account for. Another 5 x 10^50 heavy nuclei are probably in the rocky cores of the Jovian planets, though core weights are very difficult to estimate. Astronomers estimate that icy comets and dust in the Oort cloud may double the mass of the inner eight planets.

So, in this little bitty solar system, we have (at least) 8 x 10^50 atomic nuclei that were created somehow.

Convention theory holds that these were formed inside supernova's, were ejected into space, captured by nearby stellar clouds, condensed into a star large enough to go supernova, went through another supernova and fused into higher level elements, and got ejected into space, captured by another gas cloud ... etc. Finally, they were captured by our proto-sun in our region of space, and, under gravity condensed into a spinning cloud that in turn, condensed further into rings, then these rings congealed into planets.

We see this process going on, and supernova's seem to occur in visible galaxies, about once every 50-100 years. Dust clouds ejected from supernova's in our galaxy within the last 1000 years are visible - clearly the conventional wisdom works.

Further, conventional teaching holds that the earth has been solid for 4.6 some-odd billion years - solid rocks in Canada and Australia test out that old, and are "untouched" by subsequent supernovas and catastrophic melting. The moon is a little older than those 4.5 billion years, and theory holds it was formed from a near-miss of an asteroid collision: was ejected into space as a large mass of earth's crust, then congealed into a sphere. So, we can prove from the moon and Canada that "new" matter has NOT been formed in the solar system in any quantity since at least 6-8 billion years ago.

But ... Dramatic pause.

There aren't enough supernova's, not enough nearby stars, and not enough time between the big bang (14.5 billion years ago) and the formation of the solid planet dust rings (6 some-odd billions of years ago) for the elements to have been created.

14.5 billion years (BB) - 6 billion years (solids as dust found orbiting a proto-sun in our solar system) = 8.5 billion years.

We are told that our sun is a second generation star, which reasonable, and that it will burn for another 4-6 billion years. Again, reasonable. The 100 closest stars are mostly much smaller than the sun, and most are dimmer than the sun. Sirius A, for example, is one of the few that are brighter than the sun. Distances vary of course, but most are further than 15-20 light-years. Obviously there are no supernova's nearby, and none have been nearby - or we would "see" the remnants of the supernova, and (if dark) we would have sensed the remainder as a black hole: since the black hole would distort light, radio, infrared, and microwave radiation nearby. No nearby "heavy" masses are found at all - out to some 30 light-years at least.

The wide-ranging COBE satellite surveys that were looking for minute distortions in the background microwave radiation, for example, would have sensed nearby distortions from near-earth black holes.

8 x 10^50 atomic nuclei / 8.5 x10^9 years /31.5 x10^6 seconds per year = 3 x 10^33 atoms ejected nearby supernova's per second, traveling through space for thousands of light-years at speeds just a small fraction of light, and re-entering our gas cloud. The closest star cluster is only 4.5 light-years away: that dust cloud is a very small target for dust to be randomly ejected into its gravitational field in time to get condensed into planets.

3 x 10^33 nuclei per second sounds like a lot, and it is. But spread out over a dust cloud the size of the proto-solar system, it (almost) sounds reasonable.

But consider the requirement that ALL of these 10^50 element nuclei being ejected in one generation from a "cloud" of thousands of billions of supernova's surrounding the sun, all of these supernovas randomly but evenly spaced close enough to our dust cloud that enough of their randomly ejected elements drift our direction.

Further, these randomly-but-evenly spaced

supernova's all have to gather into superstars, go through a complete lifecycle, and go supernova in very close to the same time: a particle of dust (itself many trillions of trillions of atoms - each having had to get generated itself) that comes by our future solar system's cloud too early, or too late, will not get captured by the future sun. If you assume that the average dust particle coasts through space faster (so its travel time is less getting here so there is more time for supernova's to condense and blow up) then you have to assume that the coordinated "supernova" time for all of the first generation supernovas is even more closely timed.

Ignore the need for our galaxy's dust cloud of H and He to congeal from the expanding gasses randomly ejected from the BB, for these gasses and dust particles to themselves drift into proto-stars, and for the first generation of stars (all of the first generation stars cannot be assumed to be supernova-sized of course) to go through the billions of years to change from a H-H to H-He, to Li, to Be ... up to the carbon and neon and eventually into the iron fusion changes. See, all of the heavier-than-iron atomic nuclei have to be created as well, and they can ONLY be created after the iron cycle begins: granted, there are not as many heavier-than-iron particles as the lighter ones: H, He, nitrogen, silicon, carbon, etc are much more readily found than the heavier ores. But many billons of tons of these atoms are certainly present. And every nucleus in every gram of every ton of ore, in current theory at least, has to come from its own supernova.

Granted, the universe is considered to be "smaller" the earlier that you go back in time. A smaller universe means that any given supernova is closer to the (future) position of our galaxy's (future) dust cloud, and our own sun's (future) dust cloud.

But a closer supernova still ejects 99.9 percent of its newly-formed heavy elements the wrong direction. They may form other planets, but they are useless in forming our own planet. (And, being a dweller of this planet, I can afford to be a bit selfish about not caring whether other solar systems have rocky planets or not.) Now, 99.9% of the heavy nuclei going the wrong direction is better than 99.9999 percent going the wrong direction, but it still means that many tens of thousands of supernova's are required to create our own solar system - with all of the heavy elements as we know it now.

Further, we could suppose (somehow, and no mathematical or theoretical reason exists to justify these assumptions) that the first generation of stars was somehow different that today's second generation of stars: somehow the first generation gathered tens of thousands quicker than the dust clouds we see in global clusters and nebulas, condensed into super heavy stars quicker than they do now and were much more likely to gather into super heavy dust clouds than they do now, and those newly-condensed super-heavy stars burned through their nuclear fuel cycles tens of thousands of time faster than they do now.

All these assumptions are possible.

But, if they are correct, where did the 10^40 (?) supernova remnants go? Where are they now? They could only be 10^9 through 10^12 years old, and could not be very far from our galaxy and our sun: Why can we not find them? Our search for black holes reveals less than a few dozen heavy objects. The galaxy might have a massive black hole at its center. But even assuming that every galaxy has a black hole at center, that leaves 10^25 left to discover.

[NicknamedBob]

The problem is you're looking at a slow eddy in the flow and wondering how all the pebbles got there.

The Solar System consists of about 99.99% Hydrogen, mostly in the Sun, and a few odd collections of the remaining debris, which has been selectively separated out like wheat from the chaff in much the same way.

The violent roiling and tossing of the primordial Earth gave ample opportunity for lighter elements to be "blown away" by the solar wind. Perhaps much of it was vacuumed up by Jupiter, which itself is another huge pool of Hydrogen, and small amounts of other stuff.

We didn't need millions of supernovae ... we really only needed one.

[Robert A Cook PE]

But the COBE satellite covered the entire "horizon" looking for 1/100,000 variations in the background radiation from the big bang. That radiation IS (in conventional theory) to be the edge of the big bang, so we have looked at the way back in time.

And, if these superN were at that point in time, their effect in changing the "strings" that created the galaxies would have to be accounted for (somehow) in the current 3rd and 4th dimensional string theories, right?

Sure, the remnants could be the "missing" 90% of our matter that is needed by the math. But, where is this missing 90% of the universe's matter, if they are close enough to have ejected matter that drifted into our sun's influence?

[DuncanWaring]

A further question I've had for a few years now is:

"After all these superstar/supernova/superstar/supernova cycles, one would expect that the atoms of the various elements would be pretty well stirred-up and randomly distributed. Where, then, did gold nuggets and iron meteoroids come from?"

[timer]

In the book of Job you will find the phrase : And the morning stars sang together. This refers to the first generation of super massive stars that formed after the 300,000 years matter-radiation decoupling period. These MONSTER stars quickly went supernova and began the heavy element seeding process. Their shock waves also created the "soap bubble" texture of galactic formation. Searching for these first stars is at the very edge of observation limits right now. We KNOW they were there, but they haven't been SEEN yet(extreme Z).

As to iron 56, that's at the bottom of the nuclear force binding energy curve. It is a ball of Fe56 nuclei at the core of a supernova that gets hammered into a neutron star or black hole. You knew that didn't you? The heavier elements are created in the explosion but some 299 out of 300 energy units of a supernova go into the neutrino burst of the core getting hammered into a sea of neutrons(from protons).

It's a complex subject and the writer doesn't have a full grasp yet of all the facts of astrophysics. As to this nonsensical Impact-Splash theory, another illustration of right brain off the wall theorizing vs reality. We wouldn't even BE here as water rich critters if a mars had hit the earth 4.4 billion years ago : no OCEANS! Where did the earth's OCEANS come from? The clue is in Gen 2:6.

[ml/nj]

brains in a vat, man

Look in the mirror clown. There's a good chance I scored more on one SAT than you did on both. You have no idea what sort of education I have, or what I've read.

I think the "big bang" is a big joke. I'm not alone. Have a look at The Big Bang Never Happened for starters.

ML/NJ

[Robert A Cook PE]

Most of that geology I can accept, given the melting and crustal movements. But, admittedly, coordinating the simultaneous explosions of 10^40 supernova's is a bit tough.

8<)

And, as stated, today's physics and mass-energy do a pretty good job of explainig what's happening right now.

[Robert A Cook PE]

See my bio page. ..... 8<)

[bennowens]

I believe in the steady state theory of the universe. Albeit that two Nobel Prizes have been awarded to two scientists that "detected" the echo of the big bang. The big bang is a big bust.

[Enosh]

The "missing/dark matter" an interesting question, but I was trying to address your initial one: "Where did all the Snovas go?"

To do that, I pointed out that the universe used to be smaller and had a habit of getting bigger. Rapidly.

We also know that the larger a star is, the shorter its lifespan.

So, given the compact state of the early universe plus its expansion, imagine Snovas not popping off every hundred years or so, but every ten.

Then, expand that space junk across the entire universe and you may have the answer to the thread title.

[SmartAZ]

The reason the theory doesn't work right is that it postulates that gravity is the only force in the universe. We know that electrical effects also operate. The northern lights, for example. Plasma physicists routinely demonstrate all the effects seen in the universe using electric discharges, including the synthesis of heavy molecules at various apparent ages.

If you care to check this theory, you can find more at thunderbolts.info.

[neverdem]

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hframe.html

I found it to be a handy link.

[DuncanWaring]

Most of that geology I can accept, given the melting and crustal movements.

Melting and crustal movements can explain a lot, but they don't explain how randomly distributed gold atoms coming out of a supernova cluster together into solid nuggets on our planet.

That's a violation of the Law of Gaseous Diffusion, analogous to "flatulence" diving back into your trousers after everyone in the room has smelled it.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Certainly: Gaseous neon10 for example, should be much richer than it is on earth, but was was present been blown further out. Of course, that means even more fusion reactions must be added to the missing 10^40 that we can measure to account for the "missing" nuclei.

The lighter elements, particularly those matching the He4/2 (stable) sets, form the most common elements. I ignored (deliberately) the 99% of the universe that is H and He. Those (their mass ratios) are readily explained by the current theory: In fact, their very abundance is why the current theory appears strained by the "missing" sources for the 10^30 kilograms of elements that ARE present.

But, as Einstein pointed out when people criticized his theory of relativity, the correct theory must work for all observations, not just the 99% that fit the data.

[Robert A Cook PE]

An earlier reaader posted a link to "The Big Bang Never Happened" - It has a good explanation of plasma physics and cosmology that many people haven't ever found yet.

The author does get off into some tangents that distract fro his message, but I admire his writing anyway, and have had a copy of his book for many years.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Right: Weinberg's "First Three Minutes" - one of the links in your link to the GSU site, is an excellent beginner's description of the current theories.

But it doesn't address this issue.

GSU's site is also the location where I found the best list of 100 closest stars. They are a good reference point.

[RadioAstronomer]

Actually out star/solar system was created by a combination of at least three former stars that went supernova. We know this by the number of elements found inside our Sun. I am typing this off the top of my head so this value may be off but the number that comes to mind is 63 known elements.

I will write more when I get out of the lab.

[RadioAstronomer]

Actually or best estimate is 3.

[Pox]

The first generation of stars were likely very massive and thus very short lived, likely along the lines of the Wolf Rayet type. I would think that the remnants of those massive stars formed the foundation of our galaxy's central black hole.

The metals, basically anything heavier than Hydrogen and Helium, were spread out throughout the entire galaxy, some forming into new stars, and some being compressed back into the central black hole.

I would think there are a lot of possible explanations that would answer this question. Our current level of knowledge of the universe is still in the 'pre-school' stage, and although we may not currently have a good theory of everything, we are learning at an ever increasing pace it seems.

[NicknamedBob]

Shouldn't the relative presence or scarcity of various elements always be measured in terms of Iron?

Anyplace where iron can be found, heavier and lighter elements should exist also. Half of Earth is iron. The rest is all the other stuff.

Except for the scarcity of lighter elements, Earth appears to show a proper spectrum of elements, from the ubiquitous lighter weight oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen, on up through medium weight sulfur and iron, and then into more rare elements such as gold and "rare earth" elements.

That's because it's a planet. Elementary distributions will differ between stars, protostars, and planets.

One could even theorize that all planets formed from cometary materials. Then you would not need so many Supernovas.

Also, if stars were very much closer together, an exploding supernova might have converted ordinary stars around it into a well-distributed mix of various elements.

[NicknamedBob]

"And every nucleus in every gram of every ton of ore, in current theory at least, has to come from its own supernova."

Are you for some reason concluding that each atom required its own supernova?

No wonder you're running a bit short.