RE: ASTRONOMY: Dyson redux

From: Eugen Leitl (eugen@leitl.org)
Date: Wed Jan 08 2003 - 14:40:22 MST


On Wed, 8 Jan 2003, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:

> Now, I believe that fusion reactions in the sun consume Li, so
> that may explain the high ratio there -- but unless the cloud
> from which the solar system condensed was heavily enriched over
> in Li over the interstellar abundances, it seems likely that Li
> will be in short supply in the Kuiper belt.

Of course it is enrichened. Interstellar medium is largely H and He. He
being the lightest noble gas is a monoatomic, so it's out of the loop at
the slightest provocation. So is H, unless bound with other elements, most
notably as water ice. Interstellar dust congeals as star drek
(organics-contaminated) ice grains, with iron and silicates being the
toughest to make fly again once condensed.

So there's no wonder that molecular clouds have a very different element
abudancy than interstellar medium, and large structures formed by
gravitational accretion have other abundancies still. Especially, after
the separation (siderophiles/siderophobes).



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