How the Big Bang forged the first elements
The paltry amount of lithium in ancient stars raises questions about exactly how nucleosynthesis played out in the early universe. But cosmologists have a pretty good handle on how nuclear reactions created hydrogen and helium.
Published:
December 27, 2010
 Nearby globular cluster NGC 6397 contains hundreds of thousands of ancient metal-poor stars (those that have few elements heavier than helium). Observations of a few hundred of these stars show that those burning hydrogen into helium all have about the same abundance of lithium.
Photo by ESO
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