Expert: Jayendra Upadhye - 11/10/2008

Question
How can an element like lead, which is heavier than iron, contain a proton from hydrogen? (H gas cloud --8x star--Supernova---lead injected.) A proton of a Hydrogen gas cloud (nebula)found in an atom of lead on primitive earth?

Answer
Hi John,
I could not grasp what you had in mind when you typed the sequence "(H gas cloud --8x star--Supernova---lead injected.)".

Also your question was not entirely clear to me.

I shall undertake to answer the possible angles that you may have had in mind.

1 - How is it possible for a proton in a hydrogen nucleus to be found in lead, which is so heavy?

2 - A proton of a Hydrogen gas cloud (nebula)found in an atom of lead on primitive earth?
Also could Mean how heavier metals like lead exist on earth even though the sun is still only burning hydrogen to form at best, helium?

Regarding point 1:-
Well, a proton, like the neutron, and the electron is but a building block in a series of ever more complex elements.
If you know the periodic table, you will notice how the elements increase in atomic weight as one progresses from left to right across columns and downwards in rows.
Hydrogen being the leftmost and topmost is the lightest and has but one proton and an electron, with an addirional neutron or two thrown in occasionally, to give us isotopes dueterium and tritium (heavy hydrogen). The increased nuetrons make tritium unstable as the neutron/proton ratio region of stability of 1.5 is violated.
But we digress.

Stars, in their cores, and supernovas in their outward travelling shockfronts, powered by the nuetrino flash, create heavier elements by nucleosynthesis. The outward travelling shock actually stalls, but is then powered outwards when some energy from the outward bound neutrinos gets coupled with the matter in the shock-front.

So that should take care of point 1.

Regarding point 2, well, the sun is a 3rd or 4th generation star and all elements heavier than helium, that are found in the system, are remnants of a supernova that triggered the formation of the sun, in a stellar nursery like the one seen in the m16 eagle nebula, or in the star cluster of the pleades.

So you and me are made of star stuff, the water in the oceans existed before the sun was even formed, and so did the alkali salts!
The supernova conflagration, as it cools and expands, gives an opportunity for various highly reactive elements to attack surrounding matter and form long lasting stable compounds. The elements to right and left of the periodic table have extreme affinities for each other and so we get huge abundances of water, and chlorides, flourides of hydrogen, sodium, potassium, calcium etc.
And also gases such as cyanide of hydrogen, ammonia, methane and various compounds of Carbon, and silicon.

hope that takes care of point 2.

regards
Jayen