FORMATION OF THE

ELEMENTS IN THE
EVOLUTION OF THE
UNIVERSE
Episode 1
Photo credit: https://slideplayer.com/slide/12740111/
 Big bang Theory

• Edwin Hubble

Galaxies are continuously

moving away from one
another.

Photo credit:
The universe is expanding.
https://earthsky.org/space/this-date-in-science-edwin-hubble-and-the-expanding-universe
Photo credit: Openstax astronomy
 Big bang Theory

• Georges Lemaitre
The universe came
from a singularity

Georges Lemaitre
• George Gamow
Photo credit: Encyclopedia Britannica, 2010
Revised and
extended the Big bang
theory on what it is today
George Gamow
Photo credit: Encyclopedia Britannica, 2012
 Big bang Theory

It postulates that 13.7 billion years

ago, the universe experiences a
sudden inflation from a singularity
to its present size and much cooler
state (Howell, 2017)
George Gamow
Photo credit: Encyclopedia Britannica, 2012
Evidences supporting Big bang

 Universal redshift
 Cosmic microwave background radiation
 Abundance of light elements (H, He, Li)
 Universal red shift

An observation by Edwin Hubble

stated that the spectral lines of
starlight coming from galaxies he
studied was shifted to the red end
of the spectrum (Harris, 2015)
Photo credit: Astronomy stack exchange, 2019
 Doppler effect

Photo credit: themaxxjacket, 2014

 Cosmic microwave background
radiation
• Discovered accidentally by Robert
Wilson and Arno Penzias

• The first afterglow of the hot,

early universe (Howell, 2017)

Photo credit: ESA and the Planck collaboration
 Abundance of light elements

Photo credit: https://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2008/03/19/the-abundance-of-light-elements

Formation of elements in the
evolution of the Universe

The elements of the present universe

were formed in a process known as
nucleosynthesis

Photo credit: http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast123/lectures/lec21.html

Stages of nucleosynthesis

• Primordial
• Stellar
• Supernova

Photo credit: https://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/N/nucleosynthesis.html

Hydrogen Isotopes

Photo credit: https://sites.google.com/site/physics8atlaurel/isotopes

 Primordial nucleosynthesis
The building up of complex atoms through the formation of
deuterium nuclei or deuterons

n+p d+y

The breaking up of a deuteron nuclei apart into its complex

components

d+y n+p
All of the free neutrons in the universe were rapidly bound in the
deuterium nuclei, and from then on other light nuclei formed.
 Stellar nucleosynthesis
The production of nuclei heavier than Hydrogen in stars.

Matter that was uniformly distributed clumped together and

began to form proto-galaxies.

Collapse of internal lumps

took place under
gravitational force.
 How far will fusion in the sun proceed?

4He +4He + 4He 12C + y

Stars evolve so that they have onion-like shells of successively heavier

elements where different thermonuclear reactions take place.

12C + 4He 16 O + y
20Ne+ 4He+ 24 Mg y and so on
Why stars don’t collapse?

Photo credit: David Darling, 2016

Fate of stars

Photo credit: NASA

 Supernova nucleosynthesis

Formation of elements heavier than

Iron.

Heavier elements like Au, Ag, Pb,

and Hg requires the very special
conditions of pressure and heat
that exist inside a supernova.
Photo credit: : hhttps://www.space.com/6638-supernova.html