Eli5: Is it possible that there are elements on other planets, we don’t have on earth and haven’t discover yet?

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Eli5: Is it possible that there are elements on other planets, we don’t have on earth and haven’t discover yet?

In: Chemistry

12 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

If you are imagining something like earth but with the addition of one element we just haven’t found yet on earth, no that’s not really possible. We have exhaustively identified every element.

There does exist 2 possibilities, however they are extremely unlikely. One is that there are heavier elements that are unexpectedly stable. Maybe 212 protons is stable (we’ve checked up to 118?). Maybe there is some unknown cosmological event that creates this element?

The other possibility is there is a place/region of space where there are physics at play we haven’t figured out/discovered. Maybe a place where dark matter is dense enough that it condensed into some solid form that can interact with regular matter? Or maybe it’s possible to combine quarks or something in a different way we’ve never seen before?

But for what I think the heart of your question is, then no, as far as we know it’s not possible.

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