text: Answered: 1. Alpher, Bethe & Gamow speculat... |24HA
  1. Alpher, Bethe & Gamow speculated on how elements of the ...
  1. Alpher, Bethe & Gamow speculated on how elements of the periodic table could have formed. They based on their idea on the observed distribution of Hydrogen (3/4) and Helium (1/4) in the universe. With that as the starting point, now we understand that heavier elements were formed by fusion reactions (element burning) only upto Fe (Iron), beyond which the fusion would absorb more energy (endothermic) and instead of proceeding the star would collapse.
  Hypothetical scenario #1: New observations show that there is a star made solely of Gold (Au) Hydrogen ! You, a newly assigned director of Astrophysics at NASA, have to review these results before the data gets published. Is this a hot new discovery that can change the way we perceive how elements form? or, does this data need critical re-evaluation for scientific consistency? Justify your answer. (HINT: you may need to look at a periodic table)
  4. Kepler's third law, simplified for our solar system, relates to the period of revolution (P in years) of a planet around the Sun and its average distance (S in A.U.) from the Sun by using the mathematical relationship:
  P²=S³
  It is estimated that a previously undiscovered planet has an period of orbit of about 20000 years around the Sun. What would be the average distance (in A.U.) of the newly discovered planet from the Sun?
  1. Neither the Big Bang nor stars normally produce elements heavier than iron. The heavier elements are mostly produced in supernova explosions, so there is gold on Earth. However, concentration of gold into nuggets is a complex geological process, and there is no way for a star to be made of pure gold without admixture of a lot of other elements by natural processes.
  Therefore there are two possibilities:
  One is that whoever made this discovery made some big errors. However you know the people and they never ever make any errors at all...