Science Forums 2

[Jay-qu]

not sure what you mean by 'souce'. In the very early universe only Hydrogen and small amounts of Helium exsisted. It wasnt untill the formation of suns that the Hydrogen begun to fuse together and create the heavier elements. As we assume that suns work the same the universe over than we assume that they all convert Hydrogen into heavier elements. This can be backed up by a thing called emmision spectra. The emmision spectra of a sun can help us determine what it is composed of, lo and behold mainly Hydrogen and Helium (traces of heavier elements can be found in old or 2nd+ generation stars).

Now whether or not there are other elements we have not yet discovered is debateable. You see we have this thing called the periodic table and it organises the element in atomic order (increasing no. of protons in the neucleus) and so far there arent any gaps. To find an element that is heavier than all the ones we have so far discovered, I would say is somewhat improbable. This is becuase stars fuse elements together this process normally realeases vast amounts of energy. But once a star has used a lot of its hydrogen it fuses helium into berillium and eventually Iron - this is the limit for the release of enery from fusion. Iron has the most stable nucleus and th create elements any heavier than Iron it no longer releases energy but it actually requires energy!
So this makes the heavier elements a lot more scarce throughout the universe, add this with the fact that the heaviest stable know element is the Bismuth-209 isotope (this means anything heavier is unstable and will eventually decay untill it becomes stable) and it sounds very unlikely to find a previously undiscovered naturally occuring element.

But who knows I am a firm believer in linda's statement that 'Anything is possible'. Only time will tell at this point.