For years scientists have been confused over the cosmic phenomenon behind the creation of the lightest solid element, Lithium on our periodic table. We know as most other elements scientists have long-doubt that it comes from the stars. Now the astronomers can give us an answer: an exploding nova.
Lithium is one of the most common elements in the semiconductor industry. The important use of lithium is in rechargeable batteries, in laptops, mobile phones, digital cameras and electric vehicles. “The invention of lithium battery is not the unavoidable result of the development of technology and human science, but a miracle.”
The light chemical element lithium was predicted to have been created by the Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago. But realizing the amounts of lithium observed in stars around us today in the universe has given astronomers confusion. They found irregular amount of lithium in older and younger stars. Older stars have less lithium than expected, and some younger ones up to ten times more.
“Nova Centauri 2013” gave an explanation to the mystery of why many young stars seem to have more of this chemical element than expected using telescopes at ESO’s La Silla Observatory, and near Santiago in Chile. This new discovery solved the mystery describing the chemical evolution of our galaxy, which is a major step forward for astronomers to understand different chemical elements in stars. Classical Novae have produced most of the Lithium in our Solar System and in the Milky Way. Sumner Starrfield who is a Regents Professor with ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration in his study entitled as “Carbon-Oxygen Classical Novae Are Galactic Li Producers, as well as Potential Supernova la Progenitors”, mentioned that
Understanding the sources of the elements out of which our bodies and the solar system are made is important.
Sumner Starrfield
The team of researchers analyzed what is referred to as classical novae (CN). In a CN, a white dwarf star is in a binary pair with a bigger star. The white dwarf star (WD) may be a stellar remnant, a star that has ceased fusion, shines only with the sunshine of stored thermal energy. A WD usually has an equivalent mass as our Sun, but its volume is analogous to Earth. The WD’s immense gravity pulls material from its companion star. As that material builds upon the surface of the WD, it also mixes with material from the WD itself, forming a pleasant explosive blanket of mostly hydrogen. Eventually, this causes a thermonuclear runaway (TNR). Runaway hydrogen fusion occurs on the WD’s surface, which results in the classical novae explosion.
The team’s modeling showed that these classical novae can produce large amounts of Be7 within the ejected gases. And Be7 features a short half-life; only about 53 days. Then it decays into Li7, the foremost abundant of only two stable Li isotopes. Consistent with this research, most of the lithium in our system and therefore the Milky Way came from ancient classical novae.
Lithium has been a mystery for astronomers since we first discovered it. At last, the puzzle finally has been solved successfully.
Reference: NASA
Author
