Beryllium is one of the many elements people mine and
that's how we obtained it for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.
It exists in many rocks, just in tiny quantities. We collected
We collected rocks with the highest amounts of beryllium, crushed them up, put them through many
chemical processes and these rocks only have
have 0.25 percent beryllium. To explain
explain beryllium's strange beginnings, we need to talk about the cosmic
origins or most elements. Where does beryllium
really come from?
When a star is forming it's mostly two elements: hydrogen
and some helium. Over time, pressure and temperature builds in the core
so much that some of the hydrogen atoms fuse, creating helium
and officially bringing the star to life.
That fusion creates a tremendous amount of energy, and it is literally
what fuels the star and makes the light we see.
The star will eventually run out of hydrogen. And the helium atoms
will start to fuse, creating even larger atoms.
That keeps happening and we get larger and larger elements.
These new large elements are denser than the former hydrogen and helium.
And they cause the star to contract and get
even hotter. But it all stops with iron.
There isn't enough energy to fuse something more substantial.
Once there is too much iron in the star, which means that is no fuel, it dies
But not without a dramatic exit!
The core collapses under the pressure, and all the atoms knock into one another
which cause a sort-of shockwave and it EXPLODES!
Into a supernova!
This is the energy needed to create
heavier elements. This is when more than half the elements in the periodic table
are made. But! Beryllium is not in that mix.
Look where it is on the table. It has an atomic mass of 4.
Much smaller than the heavy new elements.
Why isn't beryllium made when all the other smaller elements were?
It is just too unstable. If, during the chaos of the supernova
a cosmic ray hits one of these newly formed larger elements
a special reaction happens this is called cosmic ray spallation.
This ray hits the molecule and it bursts into smaller particles.
The pieces can continue splitting into smaller parts
some of which turn into beryllium.
It takes a supernova and a cosmic ray
to reduce a large element into what could be
a variety of combinations of sizes to create beryllium.
No wonder why it's so rare!
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