We will now ASSUME that the clouds formed themselves into what evolutionists call proto-stars, or first-generation stars.
STARS EXPLODE AND SUPERNOVAS
PRODUCE HEAVY ELEMENTS
The problem—The Big Bang only produced hydrogen and helium. Somehow, the 90 heavier (post-helium) elements had to be made. The theorists had to figure out a way to account for their existence.
The theory—The first stars, which were formed, were so-called 'first-generation stars' (also called 'population III stars'). They contained only lighter elements (hydrogen and helium). Then all of these stars repeatedly exploded. Billions upon billions of stars kept exploding, for billions of years. Gradually, these explosions are said to have produced all our heavier elements.
This concept is as wild as those preceding it.
1 - Another imaginative necessity. Like all the other aspects of this theory, this one is included in order to somehow get the heavier (post-helium) elements into the universe. The evolutionists admit that the Big Bang would only have produced hydrogen and helium.
2 - The nuclear gaps at mass 5 and 8 make it impossible for hydrogen or helium to change itself into any of the heavier elements. This is an extremely important point, and is called the 'helium mass 4 gap' (that is, there is a gap immediately after helium 4). Therefore exploding stars could not produce the heavier elements. (Some scientists speculate that a little might be produced, but even that would not be enough to supply all the heavier elements now in our universe.) Among nuclides that can actually be formed, gaps exists at mass 5 and 8. Neither hydrogen nor helium can jump the gap at mass 5. This first gap is caused by the fact that neither a proton nor a neutron can be attached to a helium nucleus of mass 4. Because of this gap, the only element that hydrogen can normally change into is helium. Even if it spanned this gap, it would be stopped again at mass 8. Hydrogen bomb explosions produce deuterum (hydrogen 2), which, in turn, forms helium 4. In theory, the hydrogen bomb chain reaction of nuclear changes could continue changing into ever heavier elements until it reached uranium;—but the process is stopped at the gap at mass 5. If it were not for that gap, our sun would be radiating uranium toward us!
'In the sequence of atomic weight numbers 5 and 8 are vacant. That is, there is no stable atom of mass 5 or mass 8 . . The question then is: How can the build-up of elements by neutron capture get by these gaps? The process could not go beyond helium 4 and even if it spanned this gap it would be stopped again at mass 8. This basic objection to Gamow’s theory is a great disappointment in view of the promise and philosophical attractiveness of the idea.'—*William A. Fowler, California Institute of Technology, quoted in Creation Science, p. 90.
Clarification: If you will look at any standard table of the elements, you will find that the atomic weight of hydrogen is 1.008. (Deuterum is a form of hydrogen with a weight of 2.016.) Next comes helium (4.003), followed by lithium (6.939), beryllium (9.012), boron (10.811), etc. Gaps in atomic weight exist at mass 5 and 8.
But cannot hydrogen explosions cross those gaps? No. Nuclear fision (a nuclear bomb or reactor) splits (unevenly halves) uranium into barium and technetium. Nuclear fusion (a hydrogen bomb) combines (doubles) hydrogen into deuterum (helium 2), which then doubles into helium 4—and stops there. So a hydrogen explosion (even in a star) does not go across the mass 5 gap.
We will now ASSUME that hydrogen and helium explosions could go across the gaps at mass 5 and 8:
3 - There has not been enough theoretical time to produce all the needed heavier elements that now exist. We know from spectrographs that heavier elements are found all over the universe. The first stars are said to have formed about 250 million years after the initial Big Bang explosion. (No one ever dates the Big Bang over 20 billion years ago, and the date has recently been lowered to 15 billions years ago.) At some lengthy time after the gas coalesced into 'first-generation' stars, most of them are theorized to have exploded and then, 250 million years later, reformed into 'second-generation' stars. These are said to have exploded into 'third-generation' stars. Our sun is supposed to be a second- or third-generation star.
4 - There are no population III stars (also called first-generation stars) in the sky. According to the theory, there should be 'population III' stars, containing only hydrogen and helium, many of which exploded and made 'population II' (second-generation stars), but there are only population I and II stars (*Isaac Asimov, Asimov’s New Guide to Science, 1984, pp. 35-36).
5 - Random explosions do not produce intricate orbits. The theory requires that countless billions of stars exploded. How could haphazard explosions result in the marvelously intricate circlings that we find in the orbits of suns, stars, binary stars, galaxies, and star clusters? Within each galactic system, hundreds of billions of stars are involved in these interrelated orbits. Were these careful balancings not maintained, the planets would fall into the stars, and the stars would fall into their galactic centers—or they would fly apart! Over half of all the stars in the sky are in binary systems, with two or more stars circling one another. How could such astonishing patterns be the result of explosions? Because there are no 'first generation' ('Population I') stars, the Big Bang theory requires that every star exploded at least one or two times. But random explosions never produce orbits.
6 - There are not enough supernova explosions to produce the needed heavier elements. There are 81 stable elements and 90 natural elements. Each one has unusual properties and intricate orbits. When a star explodes, it is called a nova. When a large star explodes, it becomes extremely bright for a few weeks or months and is called a supernova. It is said that only the explosions of supernovas could produce much of the needed heavier elements, yet there have been relatively few such explosions.
7 - Throughout all recorded history, there have been relatively few supernova explosions. If the explosions occurred in the past, they should be occurring now. Research astronomers tell us that one or two supernova explosions are seen every century, and only 16 have exploded in our galaxy in the past 2,000 years. Past civilizations carefully recorded each one. The Chinese observed one, in A.D. 185, and another in A.D. 1006. The one in 1054 produced the Crab nebula, and was visible in broad daylight for weeks. It was recorded both in Europe and the Far East. Johannes Kepler wrote a book about the next one, in 1604. The next bright one was 1918 in Aquila, and the latest in the Veil Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud on February 24, 1987.
'Supernovae are quite different . . and astronomers are eager to study their spectra in detail. The main difficulty is their rarity. About 1 per 650 years is the average for any one galaxy . . The 1885 supernova of Andromeda was the closest to us in the last 350 years.'—*Isaac Asimov, New Guide to Science (1984), p. 48.
8 - Why did the stellar explosions mysteriously stop? The theory required that all the stars exploded, often. The observable facts are that, throughout recorded history, stars only rarely explode. In order to explain this, evolutionists postulate that 5 billion years ago, the explosions suddenly stopped. Very convenient. When the theory was formulated in the 1940s, through telescopes astronomers could see stars whose light left them 5 billion light-years ago. But today, we can see stars that are 15 billion light-years away. Why are we not seeing massive numbers of stellar explosions far out in space? The stars are doing just fine; it is the theory which is wrong.
9 - The most distant stars, which are said to date nearly to the time of the Big Bang explosion, are not exploding,—and yet they contain heavier elements. We can now see out in space to nearly the beginning of the Big Bang time. Because of the Hubble telescope, we can now see almost as far out in space as the beginning of the evolutionists’ theoretical time. But, as with nearby stars, the farthest ones have heavier elements (are 'second-generation'), and they are not exploding any more frequently than are the nearby ones.
10 - Supernovas do not throw off enough matter to make additional stars. There are not many stellar explosions and most of them are small-star (nova) explosions. Yet novas cast off very little matter. A small-star explosion only loses a hundred-thousandth of its matter; a supernova explosion loses about 10 percent; yet even that amount is not sufficient to produce all the heavier elements found in the planets, interstellar gas, and stars. So supernovas—Gamow’s fuel source for nearly all the elements in the universe—occur far too infrequently and produce far too small an amount of heavy elements—to produce the vast amount that exists in the universe.
11 - Only hydrogen and helium have been found in the outflowing gas from supernova explosions. The theory requires lots of supernova explosions in order to produce heavy elements. But there are not enough supernovas,—and research indicates that they do not produce heavy elements! All that was needed was to turn a spectroscope toward an exploded supernova and analyze the elements in the outflowing gas from the former star. *K. Davidson did that in 1982, and found that the Crab nebula (resulting from an A.D. 1054 supernova) only has hydrogen and helium. This means that, regardless of the temperature of the explosion, the helium mass 4 gap was never bridged. (It had been theorized that a supernova would generate temperatures high enough to bridge the gap. But the gap at mass 4 and 8 prevented it from occurring.)
12 - An explosion of a star would not produce another star. It has been theorized that supernova explosions would cause nearby gas to compress and form itself into new stars. But if a star exploded, it would only shoot outward and any gas encountered would be pushed along with it.