Why were heavy elements, like carbon or iron, nor created during the early minutes of the universe?
344444
Mostly because the universe cooled too quickly to make these elements. There was enough time for the hydrogen to fuse into Helium and some lithium, but not enough for the additional reactions leading to carbon. Iron is even further down the periodic table. In the centers of stars, there is enough time to make these heavier elements, but only up to Iron. The reason is that Iron has the least energy per nucleon, so any reaction that makes larger nuclei takes up energy. These elements are made suring supernovae.
461329
no one knows what existing in the earliest fractions of a second (i.e. nano seconds) - but in the first millisecond or so all the matter in the universe was quarks and gluons - this quickly cooled and these particles combined to form HARDONS (the subatomic particles we know today - protons, neutrons, etc.), but they existed in a plasma (like lightening)  After about 380,000 years the hardons cooled enough to form neutral atoms
504420
First, you can safely ignore anybody who talks about "evolution" when talking about the Big Bang theory or the origin of the universe.  Such a person doesn't know the difference between biology and astrophysics, and is thus is not the best person to be asking about science.\n\nSecond, the "atoms and other stuff" didn't "cause" the Big Bang (as you say in your question).  They were created *by* it.\n\nThird, the Big Bang theory proposes that the light elements (hydrogen, helium, and perhaps some lithium) were created in *extremely* high-energy conditions present in the first moments of the universe after the big bang.  The heavier elements were created much later after gravity had coalesced masses of hydrogen into early stars.  The confirmation of these processes keeps mounting as we build bigger particle accelerators that simulate higher and higher energies in the laboratory.  \n\nBut I'm sure you're really asking what happened "before" the big bang to "cause" it.   Scientists barely have ways to even ask this question, as the very nature of "before" breaks down when we're talking about the beginning of time itself.\n\nIn other words, science does not claim to have all the answers ... but that is not to say it has no answers at all.  \n\n--- \nAnd as for Mike B. ... a shining example of the worst of both worlds ... gets his science from the Bible, but not a thing about how to treat people.  It's unlikely he's ever read the Bible, or if he did, he didn't understand a word of it.
353833
There is conjecture that the universe began with a big bang, out of nothing. If matter formed, then anti-matter also must have formed at the same time to have the various laws of physics as we know them hold good. Some scientist postulate that the big mishap in Siberia in 1906 could have happened  because of the passing of a small quantity of anti-matter. Remember, for anti-matter, we could be as dangerous as is is to us. \n\nI think anti-matter has been created in small quantities in labs, and yes you are right, it could be harnessed to meet with our energy requirements.
221112
The moon was created when a planetesimal the size of mars smashed into the protoearth some 4,5 billion years ago. A portion of earths crust was cast out into an orbit around earth where if formed the moon. This is why the moon is lacking in heavier materials like iron while its composition is very similar to the rock that we find on Hawaii and Iceland. This theory also explains why the moon is almost completely void of volatiles like water, nitrogen and carbonaceous minerals.
545813
Time was born along with space and energy in the Big Bang. \nSo, it has no sense at all asking for the "cause" of the BB. Causes precede effects in time. But there was NO time before the BB. Even the statement "before the big bang" is flawed. But our linear minds find it very difficult -if not impossible- to conceive.
468438
Earth formed as part of the birth of the solar system: what eventually became the solar system initially existed as a large, rotating cloud of dust and gas. It was composed of hydrogen and helium produced in the Big Bang, as well as heavier elements produced by stars long gone. Then, about 4.6 billion years ago (fifteen to thirty minutes before our imaginary clock started), a nearby star probably became a supernova. The explosion sent a shock wave toward the solar nebula and caused it to contract. As the cloud continued to rotate, gravity and inertia flattened the cloud into a disc, perpendicular to its axis of rotation. Most of the mass concentrated in the middle and began to heat up. Meanwhile, as gravity caused matter to condense around dust particles, the rest of the disc started to break up into rings. Small fragments collided and became larger fragments.[2] These included one collection approximately 150 million kilometers from the center: Earth. As the Sun condensed and heated, fusion began, and the resulting solar wind cleared out most of the material in the disc that had not already condensed into larger bodies.
382215
The Earth is assumed to be about 4.6 billion years old, and unlike what everyone else said, it's not based solely on anything contained on Earth, including carbon dating. The oldest solid material found on Earth is about 4.1 billion years.\n\nThe guess -- and that's all it is, a guess -- is based on the rate of radiological decay of material on Earth and in meteorites found on Earth and around the solar system.\n\nIf you assume that the entire universe is formed from a common pool of matter (the essence of the Big Bang theory is that all material in the universe came from a single, supercondensed source that exploded); if you assume that therefore, all the matter in the universe has been equally distributed in all directions; if you assume that the rates of decay in all radiological material in the universe are consistent regardless of time, their position in the universe, etc.; then you can derive, by comparing the same kind of radiological material from celestial bodies that were not formed in our solar system, bodies that were part of our solar system when it formed, and that material now on Earth, the age that the Earth must be at the time it began to take solid form.\n\nThe paticular materials used to get that age is Lead-206 / Lead-207, which are the products of decay in Uranium-238.\n\nThis is further supported by temperature measurements of the universe and the evidence of background radiation from the timing of the Big Bang, which is assumed to have occurred about 15 billion years ago; given the rate of expansion of the universe visible to us, and the rate of change in both the speed of that expansion, the temperature of the universe and the density of space, we can verify the assumptions of the Earth's age to be within the estimation of a "young Earth" of 4.6 billion years old.\n\nAlso, to the person who said "The Bible": If you derive the history of the Earth from the Bible, as countless theological scholars have done through extensive research, it's about 6,000 years old; no scholarly Biblical research places the age of Earth at more than 10,000 years old.\n\nIf you want to believe that, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that's fine. But you should at least agree with your evidence before citing it.
986236
No new matter is created by nuclear processes.\nIn fact matter is destroyed thus realising energy.\nIn the process of Fission heavy atoms are split into two or more light atoms and energy. In this case also no new matter is formed. The weight of new atoms is always less than the weight of the original heavy atom.\nIn the process of Fusion two light atoms join to form one heavy atom. In this case also energy is produced at the expense of weight of matter.
657306
Some elements are not natural to earth, and were brought here by meteroites and such things that crashed into Earth (and still crash into today). Some of the heavy metals, especially...certain other elements. \n\nSome are just unstable elements or compounds, and so they break down rather quickly, especially the radioactive ones where their half-lives are as short as days or minutes. Or are man-made.\n\nYou also have to go down to the basics of Chemistry. Some elements HATE to be alone, they are unstable in their groundstates, and they like to bond with other atoms to form compounds.\n\n"Elements 58 to 71 (on the periodic table) are known as lanthanide or rare earth elements. These elements are found on earth in only very small amounts.\nElements 90 to 103 are known as the actinide elements. They include most of the will known elements which are found in nuclear reactions. The elements with larger atomic numbers than 92 do not occur naturally. They have all been produced artificially by bombarding other elements with particles.\n\n\nThere are a wide array of reason as to why some elements are more rare. I hope this shed a little bit of light to your question.
473144
Gold and helium are made of the same stuff, but are radically different.\n\nWhat is important is how the compenents are arraigned.  And by that, I mean through natural processes.\n\nYes, we are made of star stuff.  Without iron created in a supernova somewhere, our blood wouldn't work.\n\nHumans didn't "mysterously" appear.  From the first organism to humans a few billion year laters, it took trillions of babysteps and trial and error to build the eventually more complex organism of man.\n\nThe alive question is simple to.  A computer in pieces doesn't do a darn thing, but if you put it together correctly, it operates perfectly in an extremely complex manner.  At some point, humans emerged into consciousness when all the pieces, via natural selection, fit together in the right way.
750275
1. hydrogen, helium, lithium.  Hydrogen was definitely the first element to be formed, because of its simplicity, consisting of only a single proton and a single electron.  Heavier elements formed only through fusion of the existing hydrogen, which means that it longer for progressively heavier elements to form.  Helium and lithium are the second and third lightest elements, respecitvely, meaning they would be the next to form.  In fact, the only element to form in Big Bang nucleosynthesis, apart from hydrogen, helium, and lithium, was a trace amount of beryllium.  No oxygen or carbon was formed in the Big Bang, although a small amount of deuterium was.  However, deuterium is not an element, but a form of hydrogen.  In any event, this process ended three minutes after the Big Bang, after which all formation of heavier elements occurred through fusion in stars.
1134735
Within the first three minutes, matter (in the form of protons and neutrons) were formed and created Hydrogen isotopes.  But the first stable atoms that we usually think of didn't occur until electrons could form.\n\nAround 300,000 years after the big bang the universe had cooled enough to allow atoms to form.  Before this time, the universe was too hot to allow electrons to combine with nuclei.  In this time-frame  the universe was dominated by radiation, whereas now, the universe is dominated by matter.
941884
It's a big mystery. I have read that initially, at the onset of the Big Bang, all the matter of the universe existed as a singularity that was infinitely dense and it, suddenly, expanded several times the speed of light. Once the expansion, or explosion, occurred the mass was no longer homogenous, but was clumped together, which can explain the formation of the planets, stars, etc. It's funny that all the big brains of the scientific community can tell you what happened .1, .01, .001 seconds (and so on) after the big bang, but none of them can tell you what occured the half second before.
605498
i wont point you to a link :)\n\nNuclear Synthesis is the process which forms newer heavier elements (e.g. iron ) from lighter elements ( e.g. hydrogen ).\n\nit does NOT occur naturally on Earth and is known to occur within stars during the final stages in their lifetimes. \n\nelements differ from each other by the weight of their nucleus ( center )  with hydrogen being the simplest with a weight of 1 .\n\ncombining 4 hydrogens will make  helium and this process is what the sun uses to burn.  in turn,  helium can be "fused" to make other heavier elements such as oxygen and carbon for example. ( see the periodic table ).\n\nthe process of fusing atoms requires great temperatures and pressures that not are present on earth ( except in thermonuclear bombs ! ) .  \n\nit is thought that all the elements were once created in the center of the many stars !\n\nin essence, everything ( except for hydrogen ) is made of star stuff !\n\nhope i resolved your confusion.
164903
Gravitational contraction makes things hot, just like your bicycle air pump gets hot from compressing air.  In the sun, this means TREMENDOUSLY HOT.\n\nHot enough and with enough pressure to start nuclear reactions, also facilitated by carbon atoms--the hydrogen-carbon-helium reaction:\n\nMatter is so pressed in the sun that actual space inside atoms is reduced.  Hydrogen is forced into the carbon nucleus, but it can hold only four such protons.  When this saturation state is achieved, it begins to emit helium as fast as new protons arrive.  Thus the hydrogen is changed into helium with the production of energy. Carbon, the catalyst, remains unchanged.\n\nThere is a loss of mass -- check out atomic weights and you will see a difference between two hydrogens and one helium.  The difference is mass that was converted to energy.\n\nThere are other processes going on in the sun.  Check out THE URANTIA BOOK in the 400+ pages range for more copious info on this subject in easy to understand English without jargon and pretension.\n\nThe brutally dangerous energies are attenuated by the "Compton effect" (look it up) as they percolate towards the surface transferred from one strata of elements to another.  This journey takes 500,000 years from the center!\n\nThe sun consists of many layers like an onion.  The last layer is calcium rich and 6000 miles thick.  That is because calcium is propelled to the surface, even though it is heavier.\n\nThis miraculous provision of the creators makes life possible on the earth as harmful X-rays are attenuated.\n\nCalcium is a photokinetic material under certain circumstances, where it loses one electron.  The PHOTOKINETIC FORCE propels much of this type out into the solar system annually, in spite of the massive solar gravity.\n\nYou also see shells of exploding material coming off of supernovae, much like the shell being blown off an egg.\n\nThe surface temperature of the sun is about 6000 degrees F, 3333 degrees C.\n\nHowever, in the center it is 35 million degrees Fahrenheit, about 19.4 million degrees C.\n\nThe suface is boiling.  All elements are in gaseous state, even calcium.  Much of this is boiling calcium.\n\nThere is a great battle between the forces of heat and gravity, expansion and contraction.  These have achieved a state of dynamic equilibirium on a massive scale.  At an earlier age the sun actually pulsed like those stars called Cepheid variables.\n\nI see other people have relevant details that I will not repeat.  Temperatures going out from surface are different...\n\nMy information is often left out.
793719
Stellar Fusion.  Stellar Fusion can make elements up to Iron.  After that they can't fuse anything more heavy.  In really big stars, this limit causes the star to collapse, rebound, and explode, and it is thought that this explosion is powerful enough to fuse the other heavier elements.\n\nLately though, it seems that Supernovae are no longer enough, and there are physicists looking for other methods of fusion because stellar models predict that supernovae might not produce enough elements to explain the current observed amount of heavy elements out there....\n\nSo I guess it's still up in the air.