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UNDER REVIEW
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The First Three Minutes

Section 5 of 6

The Origin of the Elements

Part 4: The Origin of the Elements

Now the oldest thread in the course closes. We have watched the elements being made in three different cosmic foundries, across three modules:

  • The first three minutes made the light nuclei: hydrogen, about a quarter helium, a trace of lithium. The raw material of everything.
  • Stars (Module 3) fuse hydrogen and helium into carbon, oxygen, and on up to iron — the elements of rock, water, and life — over their long lives.
  • Supernovae and neutron-star mergers (Module 4) forge and scatter the heaviest elements, the ones built by rapid neutron capture in the most violent deaths.
Periodic table color-coded by nucleosynthesis origin: hydrogen and helium from Big Bang (pink), elements like carbon and oxygen from dying low-mass stars (yellow), iron-peak elements from supernovae (orange), heavy elements like gold from merging neutron stars (blue), with some human-made elements (green).
Figure 3The periodic table is a fossil record of cosmic processes. Different colors = different origins: Big Bang (H, He), dying stars (C, N, O), supernovae (Fe), neutron star mergers (Au, Pt).NASA/Jennifer Johnson

Quick check

A water molecule is . Where and when were its hydrogen and its oxygen made?