How did nuclear elements form and why are they so powerful?
In: Planetary Science
What do you mean “nuclear” elements? I bet you mean radioactive elements!
Ok, how elements are formed.
The three lightest/simplest elements; hydrogen, helium, and a little bit of lithium were created shortly* after the Big Bang, The “start” of the universe*. Everything else on the periodic table was created via stars. Either in the heart of stars, star explosions, or star collisions.
Touching on radioactive decay.
Some elements aren’t very happy the way they are and they end up changing. This is what we call radioactive decay. Radioactive decay can mean a lot of things in this field, but the easiest to visualize is an Atom / element splitting in half.
Both stellar physics and particle physics are crazy huge fields of study. You could spend your whole life learning about either one and you could still learn new things at the end. I highly recommend you check out some YouTube videos on either topic. Really interesting stuff.
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