origin of radioactive matter

[flaja]

Where did radiation come from?

My understanding is that the Big Bang sent energy and subatomic particles flying around and that the subatomic particles coalesced into hydrogen, which coalesced into larger and larger atoms until the entire periodic table was populated.

But, if radioactive atoms are radioactive because they are unstable, how were radioactive atoms ever created? Thorium has an atomic number of 90, while uranium has an atomic number of 92. So if matter with an atomic number of 90 is unstable, how could matter with an atomic matter of 92 ever have been formed?

 

[notto]

You need to read up on what a half life is.

Even unstable atoms can be around for a long time.

This is pretty basic stuff.

This information is available in basic science books. It's not like you are thinking of things that haven't been dealt with before.

Are you asking because you don't know or because you think that you have stumbled on something that will bring modern science to its knees.

If you are asking because you don't know, we can help get you the answers.

If it is because you think you have stumbled on something that will bring modern science to its knees, then I suggest you try to support it with some actual science, evidence, and data.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium

Naturally occurring thorium is composed of one isotope: 232Th. Twenty-seven radioisotopes have been characterized, with the most abundant and/or stable being 232Th with a half-life of 14.05 billion years, 230Th with a half-life of 75,380 years, 229Th with a half-life of 7340 years, and 228Th with a half-life of 1.92 years. All of the remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lives that are less than thirty days and the majority of these have half-lives that are less than ten minutes. One isotope, 229Th, has a nuclear isomer (or metastable state) with a remarkably low excitation energy of 3.5 eV. [9]

 

[Mallon]

Where did radiation come from?

The Fall?

 

[metherion]

Radiation generally comes from unstable nuclei.

Unstable nuclei generally come from fusion events. Whether they be manmade (as that's how we've found most of the high level elements, as there are only 90 or so natural ones and 118 or so on the atomic table) or natural via a supernova or something.

Metherion

 

[shernren]

Where did radiation come from?

My understanding is that the Big Bang sent energy and subatomic particles flying around and that the subatomic particles coalesced into hydrogen, which coalesced into larger and larger atoms until the entire periodic table was populated.

But, if radioactive atoms are radioactive because they are unstable, how were radioactive atoms ever created? Thorium has an atomic number of 90, while uranium has an atomic number of 92. So if matter with an atomic number of 90 is unstable, how could matter with an atomic matter of 92 ever have been formed?

Stellar nucleosynthesis - though most of the heavier ones that you're talking about are formed in supernova explosions. You obviously have Internet access, so I expect that you can Google or Wiki nucleosynthesis yourself.

 

[juvenissun]

Where did radiation come from?

My understanding is that the Big Bang sent energy and subatomic particles flying around and that the subatomic particles coalesced into hydrogen, which coalesced into larger and larger atoms until the entire periodic table was populated.

But, if radioactive atoms are radioactive because they are unstable, how were radioactive atoms ever created? Thorium has an atomic number of 90, while uranium has an atomic number of 92. So if matter with an atomic number of 90 is unstable, how could matter with an atomic matter of 92 ever have been formed?

A very good question. I am sorry that you did not get much useful feedback. Shernen's answer is good, but did not really address the essense of the question.

A naive question follows Shernen's answer is then: How much time has passed since the last nearest supernova explosion till the formation of planets around our sun (a new star)? Would that be counted by billions of years? (how much time is needed to gather the space dust and to form the sun? and then to gather together in orbits to form the rest of the solar system?) If so, why would even the U238 still exist in abundance on earth?

Another question I have along this line is: Is the distribution of radioactive elements among planets (or satellites) proportional to the mass of the planet? Does Jupiter have more radioactive elements than the earth? If not, why not?

I never thought about this question. Thanks. But, I don't think you would ever get an answer in this forum, or may be not at anywhere else. This should be another good example to shut up some people who think the earth was formed by a simple model as commonly known, and used it to against the model of creation.

 

[shernren]

I never thought about this question. Thanks. But, I don't think you would ever get an answer in this forum, or may be not at anywhere else. This should be another good example to shut up some people who think the earth was formed by a simple model as commonly known, and used it to against the model of creation.

I agree with what notto said:

This information is available in basic science books. It's not like you are thinking of things that haven't been dealt with before.

Are you asking because you don't know or because you think that you have stumbled on something that will bring modern science to its knees.

If you are asking because you don't know, we can help get you the answers.

If it is because you think you have stumbled on something that will bring modern science to its knees, then I suggest you try to support it with some actual science, evidence, and data.

It depends on what questions you're asking. Most of us here are not actually researchers in our particular academic fields (with the exception of a few here, like mallon and KerrMetric in paleontology and astrophysics respectively, and a fair number of biologists over at CrEvo from what I've gathered), so really, the first (and often last) thing we ever need to do with a question like this is google it.

Which is something you can do as well. I bet it would take flaja less time to google, say, "origin of radioactive elements" and get a few answers than it did take him to write up his OP. Which raises the question: why ask here? If he genuinely wanted to know, why didn't he google it, instead of asking us - who would then have went on and googled it anyway to answer him?

Sometimes, of course, there are questions that can only be answered by looking at research papers that require paid access. Then it's understandable for people here to ask for input from people like me who, through universities and other personal avenues, have access to such journals. Another reason might be if someone does have some information, but doesn't really understand it or know how to analyze it. For example, the phrase "accelerating expansion of the universe" has come up in recent discussion and I'm more than happy to unpack it for anyone who's come across it and doesn't know what it's like.

Sometimes I have no clue, off the top of my head. For example, this:

Another question I have along this line is: Is the distribution of radioactive elements among planets (or satellites) proportional to the mass of the planet? Does Jupiter have more radioactive elements than the earth? If not, why not?

is a very good question! I honestly don't know, for the planets; however, we have analyzed meteorite fragments that fall to earth and all of them radiodate back to about 4.5 billion years. And radiodating is essentially a method of counting mother and daughter elements, so yes, that would indicate that the radioactive makeup of meteorites are not really different from that of the Earth - which is surprising, though certainly not a challenge, for a theory which claims that the rest of the Solar System was created three days later than the Earth for a completely different reason by probably very different processes.

As for this:

A naive question follows Shernen's answer is then: How much time has passed since the last nearest supernova explosion till the formation of planets around our sun (a new star)? Would that be counted by billions of years? (how much time is needed to gather the space dust and to form the sun? and then to gather together in orbits to form the rest of the solar system?) If so, why would even the U238 still exist in abundance on earth?

Surprising that you chose U-238, because its halflife is about 4.46 billion years. In other words, if you plucked out a kilogram of U-238 at the formation of the Solar System, you'd still have 500 grams today. That's why it's still in abundance. U-235, on the other hand, has a half-life of 700 million years - so about 5 or 6 halflives have passed since the formation of the Solar System and the U-235 we have left is only about 1.1 or 1.2% of the U-235 we would have started out with.

I like your argument though, it's a good one. If the universe was created recently, we should expect to find tons of short-lived isotopes around which couldn't possibly have lasted a few billion years. It's a good argument ... if only it was true.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/dave_matson/young-earth/specific_arguments/moon_isotopes.html

And interesting stuff about supernovae and the formation oof our Solar System: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=15985

 

[notto]

The question you should be asking is if the earth is young, why don't we still have short lived isotopes.

http://www.accuracyingenesis.com/missing.html

In your effort to bring up something to suggest the earth is young, you have actually stumbled on another of the many independent lines of evidence that converge to show us the earth is old.

 

[juvenissun]

Sometimes, within a thread, it is easier to ask questions. So, here comes more. Even I do not expect any answer, but just raise the question is sometimes good enough.

The easier one goes first. For the question on the lack of short-life radioactive elements on earth. As I pointed out, those element has to go through a lengthy process since the explosion to be precipitated onto earth. A speculation is that they were long gone even before the earth material was gathered in orbit. So the lack of them does not say anything about the origin of the earth.

The harder question is: how much radioactive element, for example, U238, could be made through a supernova explosion which had, say, 10 times of the solar mass? Here we assume that we understand the nuclear synthesis process, then we should be able to quantify it, at least roughly. This theoretical value could then be able to let us speculate a little bit on what fraction of original U238 still exists on earth "today".

 

[notto]

Sometimes, within a thread, it is easier to ask questions. So, here comes more. Even I do not expect any answer, but just raise the question is sometimes good enough.

The easier one goes first. For the question on the lack of short-life radioactive elements on earth. As I pointed out, those element has to go through a lengthy process since the explosion to be precipitated onto earth. A speculation is that they were long gone even before the earth material was gathered in orbit. So the lack of them does not say anything about the origin of the earth.

The harder question is: how much radioactive element, for example, U238, could be made through a supernova explosion which had, say, 10 times of the solar mass? Here we assume that we understand the nuclear synthesis process, then we should be able to quantify it, at least roughly. This theoretical value could then be able to let us speculate a little bit on what fraction of original U238 still exists on earth "today".

You should read the footnotes. It gets at what you are asking. It is clear that the evidence we have on radioactive isotopes is consistent with an old earth and and even older universe.

We don't really need to know how much was produced to determine ages. We can find daughter/parent deposits and extrapolate how long they have been decaying.

 

[juvenissun]

You should read the footnotes. It gets at what you are asking. It is clear that the evidence we have on radioactive isotopes is consistent with an old earth and and even older universe.

We don't really need to know how much was produced to determine ages. We can find daughter/parent deposits and extrapolate how long they have been decaying.

So you do believe that the earth was solidified right after the supernova exploded.

Fine, that is your belief, not mine.

 

[shernren]

Sometimes, within a thread, it is easier to ask questions. So, here comes more. Even I do not expect any answer, but just raise the question is sometimes good enough.

The easier one goes first. For the question on the lack of short-life radioactive elements on earth. As I pointed out, those element has to go through a lengthy process since the explosion to be precipitated onto earth. A speculation is that they were long gone even before the earth material was gathered in orbit. So the lack of them does not say anything about the origin of the earth.

Well, it does say something about the age of the earth, namely that this is exactly what we'd expect if the earth was really really old, wasn't it?

The harder question is: how much radioactive element, for example, U238, could be made through a supernova explosion which had, say, 10 times of the solar mass? Here we assume that we understand the nuclear synthesis process, then we should be able to quantify it, at least roughly. This theoretical value could then be able to let us speculate a little bit on what fraction of original U238 still exists on earth "today".

Now that's a fairly interesting question. Here's a fairly interesting guide from USGS that will help:

If you can't understand the graph, basically it tells you, relative to each million silicon atoms in the Earth's crust, how many atoms of a particular element are in the Earth's crust. Half a mark on the vertical axis corresponds to a factor of the square root of 10, roughly 3.1.

Now the total mass of the earth is approximately 5.97 x 10^24 kg. 15.1% of that is silicon, for a total of 9.01 x 10^23 kg. Silicon has an atomic mass of 28.0855 g/mol (a mole is a convenient unit for counting atoms and molecules - 1 mole is 6.02 x 10^23 particles). Dividing mass by atomic mass we find that the earth has 3.2097 x 10^24 moles of silicon.

On the chart above, U is at 1 - meaning 1 atom of uranium for 1 million atoms of silicon. In fact a small percentage (<1%) of those are U-235 atoms, but given the large numbers involved leaving them out won't make a significant difference. 1 atom uranium per 1 million atoms of silicon means that the earth has 3.2097 x 10^18 moles of uranium. Uranium's atomic mass is 238.03 g/mol, so the Earth has 7.64 x 10^20 kg of uranium. Since the half-life of U-238 is roughly the same as the life of the Earth thus far we double that number: 1.528 x 10^21 kg of uranium.

That sounds like a lot. But think about this: the Sun's mass is 1.9891 x 10^30 kg, and a star with 10 stellar masses has 1.9891 x 10^31 kg of mass. In order for that one star to go supernova and then provide enough uranium for what we observe, only a little under 1 in 10^10 of its mass needs to be converted into uranium. 1 in 10^10 is something like one cent out of 100 million dollars.

No problem.

 

[notto]

So you do believe that the earth was solidified right after the supernova exploded.

Fine, that is your belief, not mine.

No. I don't believe that. Not sure how you got that from the information I provided or anything I said. You clearly are taking something I said out of context or you misunderstood the information provided.

The evidence provided by short life isotopes is just one of the many independent lines of evidence that are consistent with an old earth.

The main point of the evidence is that they are not consistent with a young earth.

 

[juvenissun]

In order for that one star to go supernova and then provide enough uranium for what we observe, only a little under 1 in 10^10 of its mass needs to be converted into uranium. 1 in 10^10 is something like one cent out of 100 million dollars.

Thanks for the calculation. I did not check it carefully, and I like to assume your estimation is correct.

But you do not assume ALL U made in a supernova get collected to the earth. I would imagine that after the explosion, only a small (how much?) fraction of the star dust would eventually participated in the formation of the solar system. And, unless some strange physics took place, I imagine that only a small fraction of that small fraction would go to the earth (majority of them would go to the sun). I am not sure how many order of magnitute would this demands the increase on the weight of the original U produced by a supernova, but I think it would be in the order of 10^5 or much more. That would make the amount of U made in the nuclear synthesis process tooooo large in proportion to other more dominant elements. (in addition, you need to count in the decay loss during the sun-earth formation process)

Yeah, you may think that the source of material for the solar system might not come from just one supernova explosion. Then the situation would go beyond what I can imagine. http://www3.christianforums.com/images/smilies/amen.gif

Thanks for the diagram of USGS. It was out of my field. but I like to get into this thing. I am more and more convinced that the current models (all of them) are way short of giving a good explanation to the origin of the earth (and the moon).

 

[juvenissun]

No. I don't believe that. Not sure how you got that from the information I provided or anything I said. You clearly are taking something I said out of context or you misunderstood the information provided.

The evidence provided by short life isotopes is just one of the many independent lines of evidence that are consistent with an old earth.

The main point of the evidence is that they are not consistent with a young earth.

Let's take Lead 205 as an example (Half Life 15 m.y.). Let's assume some of Lead 205 was made during the explosion and drifted out towar the solar system. Then it participated in the gravity concentration process of sun-earth formation. Would you think all the Lead 205 will be decayed to a negligible amount even before the earth started to be solidified.

So, the absence of Lead 205 on earth does not really say anything about the age of the earth. The earth could be made instantly, or be made only 50 m.y. ago, and yet still does not have detectable Lead205.

 

[notto]

Let's take Lead 205 as an example (Half Life 15 m.y.). Let's assume some of Lead 205 was made during the explosion and drifted out towar the solar system. Then it participated in the gravity concentration process of sun-earth formation. Would you think all the Lead 205 will be decayed to a negligible amount even before the earth started to be solidified.

So, the absence of Lead 205 on earth does not really say anything about the age of the earth. The earth could be made instantly, or be made only 50 m.y. ago, and yet still does not have detectable Lead205.

Sure it tells us something about the age of the earth. The earth could NOT have been created only 10,000 years ago.

That is the point.

The evidence is consistent with what we would expect if the earth was old.

It is NOT consistent with what we would expect if the earth was special created 10,000 years ago along with everything else.

The young earth creationist needs (yet another) ad hoc explanation to describe the absence of short lived isotopes.

 

[shernren]

Thanks for the diagram of USGS. It was out of my field. but I like to get into this thing. I am more and more convinced that the current models (all of them) are way short of giving a good explanation to the origin of the earth (and the moon).

I suspect that you're not concluding that based on facts. But oh well.

Thanks for the calculation. I did not check it carefully, and I like to assume your estimation is correct.

But you do not assume ALL U made in a supernova get collected to the earth. I would imagine that after the explosion, only a small (how much?) fraction of the star dust would eventually participated in the formation of the solar system. And, unless some strange physics took place, I imagine that only a small fraction of that small fraction would go to the earth (majority of them would go to the sun). I am not sure how many order of magnitute would this demands the increase on the weight of the original U produced by a supernova, but I think it would be in the order of 10^5 or much more. That would make the amount of U made in the nuclear synthesis process tooooo large in proportion to other more dominant elements. (in addition, you need to count in the decay loss during the sun-earth formation process)

Yeah, you may think that the source of material for the solar system might not come from just one supernova explosion. Then the situation would go beyond what I can imagine.

Good point - but hey, who says God had to go by your imagination?

Say only 1 in 10^5 of stardust gets to form the Earth. That means that now I need 1 in 10^5, instead of 10^10, of my supernova mass to become U-238 on Earth. Right?

Instead of 1 cent in 100 million dollars, now that's 1 cent in a hundred. That's still a minuscule fraction.

And why can't the source material for the solar system come from more than one supernova? On average, our galaxy witnesses a supernova about once every 50 years. That may seem like a fairly long time to a human whose lifespan is 70 years, but remember that from a long-age view of things this galaxy has been around for at least a billion years before our solar system came along - meaning 20 million supernovae, each of them throwing up something on the order of 10^30 kg of stardust, and God alone knows how much rare elements.

This is a line of argument you can't win.

Let's take Lead 205 as an example (Half Life 15 m.y.). Let's assume some of Lead 205 was made during the explosion and drifted out towar the solar system. Then it participated in the gravity concentration process of sun-earth formation. Would you think all the Lead 205 will be decayed to a negligible amount even before the earth started to be solidified.

So, the absence of Lead 205 on earth does not really say anything about the age of the earth. The earth could be made instantly, or be made only 50 m.y. ago, and yet still does not have detectable Lead205.

I actually disagree with notto here. The evidence is consistent with a young-earth ...

... in the same way that you could have a miraculously created young earth with lots of short-lived isotopes, with no short-lived isotopes, with no radioactive isotopes at all, or even completely made of cotton candy with a peppermint core.

However, juvenissun has to agree that the evidence is consistent with an old earth model, and more critically that very few other possible sets of evidence are consistent in the same way.

 

[juvenissun]

However, juvenissun has to agree that the evidence is consistent with an old earth model, and more critically that very few other possible sets of evidence are consistent in the same way.

Basically, I am using the OE principles to find loop holes in the OE models. In doing that, even I could give hard time to OE or TE people, I admit, it does not necessary support YE model.

However, I always have an "inspiration": A consistent system may not be really as true as it appears. If a system is consistent, then many many versions of "similar" systems may also be self-consistent, but just shown at a different scale. Just like when a new decay constant of a radiometric system is published, all previously measured ages are "adjusted" on a whole-sale scale into new ages. At least, this would give a logic basis to convert all OE "ages" to YE ages and still maintain all the consistency. And it is not impossible to make it happen. All you need is to find that converting constant. Any single detail in a consistent system would allow you a chance to do that.

 

[shernren]

Basically, I am using the OE principles to find loop holes in the OE models. In doing that, even I could give hard time to OE or TE people, I admit, it does not necessary support YE model.

However, I always have an "inspiration": A consistent system may not be really as true as it appears. If a system is consistent, then many many versions of "similar" systems may also be self-consistent, but just shown at a different scale. Just like when a new decay constant of a radiometric system is published, all previously measured ages are "adjusted" on a whole-sale scale into new ages. At least, this would give a logic basis to convert all OE "ages" to YE ages and still maintain all the consistency. And it is not impossible to make it happen. All you need is to find that converting constant. Any single detail in a consistent system would allow you a chance to do that.

Before we deal with trying to manipulate decay constants, can I take it that you admit that you cannot find any difficulty with supernova stellar nucleosynthesis of elements found in our Solar System?

 

[busterdog]

Thanks for the calculation. I did not check it carefully, and I like to assume your estimation is correct.

But you do not assume ALL U made in a supernova get collected to the earth. I would imagine that after the explosion, only a small (how much?) fraction of the star dust would eventually participated in the formation of the solar system. And, unless some strange physics took place, I imagine that only a small fraction of that small fraction would go to the earth (majority of them would go to the sun). I am not sure how many order of magnitute would this demands the increase on the weight of the original U produced by a supernova, but I think it would be in the order of 10^5 or much more. That would make the amount of U made in the nuclear synthesis process tooooo large in proportion to other more dominant elements. (in addition, you need to count in the decay loss during the sun-earth formation process)

Yeah, you may think that the source of material for the solar system might not come from just one supernova explosion. Then the situation would go beyond what I can imagine. http://www3.christianforums.com/images/smilies/amen.gif

Thanks for the diagram of USGS. It was out of my field. but I like to get into this thing. I am more and more convinced that the current models (all of them) are way short of giving a good explanation to the origin of the earth (and the moon).

Makes sense. So, where's all the dust from the supernova then? How did gravity clean up our little corner of the sky so neatly?

Any Switchfoot fans out there?

Oh! Gravity!
Why can't we seem to keep it together?
Sons of my enemies,
Why can't we seem to keep it together?

In the fallout, the fallout
We found out the hype won't get you through
We're connected, connected
I meant it, the hype won't get you through, through

Oh! Gravity!
Why can't we seem to keep it together?
Oh! Gravity!
Why can't we seem to pull it together?