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NNadir

(36,122 posts)
4. Well, arguably, though it can't be proved, ton quantities of these superheavy elements are present in collapsing stars.
Sun Jul 28, 2024, 08:00 AM
Jul 2024

I seem to recall, though I don't have a reference, that Californium has been detected either in stars or in supernovae. I would expect that in the r-process, particularly in the presence of heavy elements traveling at relativistic speeds albeit with very short free mean paths, some superheavy elements in period 8 occur. Almost certainly they undergo rapid fission or decay, but the rate of formation could be appreciably high.

One wonders where in the periodic table a neutron star would lie.

An argument is often made that at least some of the thorium on this planet is the decay product of 244Pu and, less often, that some of the 235U arrived in the solar system, if not the Earth itself, and 247Cm.

If one wants to get a little weird about it - and I'm prone to that - one can argue that nuclear energy is sort of "solar" since it originates in stars.

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