[Daniel Anderson]

Daniel Anderson  asked the Naked Scientists:
   
What are the first elements that were created during the big bang theory. Thanks Daniel

What do you think?

[yor_on]

The most abundant elements in the universe are hydrogen and helium.
 
"Very small amounts of these elements formed out of the primordial plasma, which gave rise to mostly hydrogen, some amount of helium, trace amounts of lithium and beryllium and essentially none of anything else. Most of the lithium and beryllium in existence now, as well as practically all the heavier elements, were formed as a result of fusion processes going on in the cores of giant stars and in the supernova explosions those stars create when they die. Small stars like the Sun only fuse hydrogen to helium during their main sequence lifetimes, but eventually fuse helium into carbon when they die, although almost all of this carbon stays in the white dwarf stellar remnant and is not blown out into space. Larger stars fuse successively higher elements one after the other as they age and their cores become denser, and eventually have several layers in their cores where different kinds of fusion are occurring. Finally the central part of the core has enough energy to fuse iron, which results in a collapse into a neutron star, while the outer part of the star is blown away into space, creating a giant cloud of dust with many elements that we are used to. Pretty much every atom we have on Earth heavier than helium is the result of fusion in massive stars that existed earlier in the Universe's history."


Take a look here.
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=813

[Chemistry4me]

Looks like they got it bang on.