Exploding 'laptop batt' IN SPAAACE! Speeding lithium spaffed by nova For the first time, astronomers have detected lithium spread across space at high speed by an exploding star. The eggheads hope this discovery will solve one of the chemical riddles of the universe. Using telescopes in Chile, an Italian team focused on Nova Centauri 2013, a nova whose light reached Earth two years ago. It is …
> Nope the explosion creates Lithium
No, the explosion spreads the lithium, Lithium is a normal product of late life star fusion.
As a stars hydrogen is consumed it is not enough to sustain the star, gravitational collapse leads to high core pressure and temperature allowing higher order fusion to take place. If the star is massive enough this can go as far as creating iron. (The latter stages of this happen in the final minutes before the star explodes as only stars massive enough to end as supernovae take fusion that far.)
Fusion into heavier elements is endothermic so cannot sustain the star, these elements are only created in a supernova explosion itself.
"Are those English billions or American?"
A quick assessment of current usage of the word "billion" in British news sites and government pronouncements suggests short-form billion is almost universal.
Except, perhaps, in El Reg comments. I suspect I could find comments here still arguing about decimalization of the pound, too. ;)
What exactly is wrong with saying 2 X 10E+24 grams
'round these parts, the "E" notation implies base-10, so what's wrong is that it should just be "2E+24", or even more concisely and readably, "2e24". But perhaps notation is more verbose in your neck of the woods.
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