In latest occasions, our work within the fusion lab has stored us exceptionally busy, leaving little time to maintain our movies updated with the various methods the Massive Bang increasing universe speculation has been invalidated over the course of 2024. Within the subsequent few movies, we’ll make an effort to atone for these developments, clearing the way in which for the brand new insights we’ll uncover in 2025.
One of the important challenges to the Massive Bang speculation that emerged just lately issues the abundance of the ingredient lithium. Lithium abundance is a cornerstone prediction of the Massive Bang concept. If the universe had as soon as been extraordinarily dense and scorching, fusion reactions inside such circumstances would have produced a particular, albeit small, quantity of lithium. This restricted quantity is because of the truth that most lithium would have been consumed in subsequent fusion reactions. In response to the speculation, we must always discover roughly 5 lithium atoms for each 10 billion hydrogen atoms — a tiny fraction, however nonetheless detectable.
Nonetheless, for many years, astronomers have recognized that this prediction presents a considerable downside. By way of spectroscopic evaluation, we will measure the lithium content material within the outer atmospheres of stars. By analyzing a star’s iron content material — since iron can solely be produced in supernova explosions — we will approximate its age. The less supernovae which have occurred, the older the star probably is. Consequently, stars with low iron content material shaped earlier within the Milky Approach’s historical past.
Right here’s the problem: stars with decrease iron content material persistently present far much less lithium than the Massive Bang speculation predicts. As iron ranges lower, lithium ranges additionally plummet, from a couple of quarter of the expected quantity at medium iron ranges to lower than one-twentieth at extraordinarily low iron ranges. This disparity has lengthy been referred to as the “lithium downside,” considered one of many challenges to the Massive Bang concept.
To reconcile this challenge, some cosmologists proposed that lithium may be destroyed inside stars in simply the appropriate portions to imitate the noticed development. But, each such speculation has confronted important contradictions from different observations. Regardless of ongoing efforts to publish papers on potential options, the issue has solely worsened.
The turning level got here in late 2024, when a collaborative examine involving researchers from Italy, France, and america delivered a decisive blow to the Massive Bang speculation. Utilizing the Very Giant Telescope on the European Southern Observatory in Chile, the workforce recorded the spectra of SK 143, a brilliant star within the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). Analyzing the absorption traces of interstellar materials, they found that lithium abundance within the interstellar medium of the SMC was 4 occasions decrease than the Massive Bang concept predicts.
This result’s crucial as a result of the interstellar medium (the fuel and plasma between stars) mustn’t cut back lithium content material. Stars can solely add lithium by means of fusion processes; they can not subtract it. Moreover, the sparse fuel within the interstellar medium just isn’t dense sufficient for fusion reactions to considerably alter lithium ranges. Subsequently, this discovering instantly contradicts the Massive Bang’s predictions.
Statistically, the possibilities that this commentary aligns with Massive Bang predictions are about 1 in 300 — hardly a reassuring affirmation. It as an alternative means that the speculation is overwhelmingly prone to be incorrect.
Apparently, these findings are in keeping with the non-expanding universe speculation. This mannequin predicts lithium manufacturing by means of cosmic rays interacting with carbon and oxygen nuclei, a course of extra prevalent within the galaxy’s early, quickly forming levels. Calculations primarily based on these ideas align nicely with the noticed lithium ranges, particularly when contemplating that solely round 40% of the fuel within the SMC has shaped stars — an element that the Massive Bang speculation fails to account for.
This exact settlement between predictions and observations presents sturdy help for the non-expanding universe mannequin and underscores the need of reassessing long-held cosmological assumptions.
