Nucleosynthesis

Nucleosynthesis is the creation of atomic nuclei. In the first few minutes after the Big Bang, the universe forged its lightest elements, hydrogen, helium, and a trace of lithium, in proportions we still measure today. Heavier elements came later, cooked inside stars and blasted out by supernovae, while the heaviest, like gold, are made in neutron-star collisions. The match between predicted and observed light-element abundances is a pillar of Big Bang cosmology.

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