So the meme is incomplete, but the general point still stands from what I can tell, right? Stars take orders of magnitude longer than 4k years to create lead as well, and there is no way of lead being created that could happen in 4k years, unless you start getting into “God made the universe look old” territory?
I mean, it’s created at a cosmic rate in the right sized star.
You’d need to back up and start talking about the big bang and star formation, and at that point lead isn’t really part of the argument. Most elements exist as a result of stars smashing atoms as per my understanding.
Most elements exist as a result of stars smashing atoms as per my understanding.
In a single star the heaviest element you can make is Iron.
To get anything heavier than Iron, which Lead is, you need your first start to blow up making iron, and the stuff left behind to eventually form a bigger star, then that star needs to blow up (where you’ll get some gold, lead and a few other slightly heavier elements. Then the remaining parts of the star need to form a neutron star. You then need that neutron star to find and eventually crash into another neutron star, and thats where you get the really heavy elements like uranium.
So does that imply that Lead has existed in the universe strictly longer than Uranium? Is the meme entirely backwards?
Stars take orders of magnitude longer than 4k years to create lead as well, and there is no way of lead being created that could happen in 4k years, unless you start getting into “God made the universe look old” territory?
Thats correct, but the meme is written as a scientific explanation and its is wrong/incomplete. To correct it, go with what you said, not with what the meme says.
Yeah, not really defending the meme. I just lazily cross-posted it from !science_memes@mander.xyz, but the discussion here has been great
