The Birth of Nickel
SUPERNOVA EXPLOSION
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Nickel magazine, February 2003 -- Nickel is the fifth most common element in
the Earth. But where did all this nickel come from?
Billions of years ago, nickel was created in supernova explosions. This is the only place in nature where the
temperature and pressure conditions were sufficient for the nickel atom to form.
The accompanying 'false' colour photo (at left), compliments of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,
shows the concentrations of nickel isotopes being expelled from a star as it expands in just such a supernova
event.
How interstellar nickel coalesced into solid objects and then into planets such as the Earth is the domain of
cosmologists and astronomers. But however it happened, nickel has been an important part of the Earth since
its beginning, well before life on earth began.
Photo: LAWRENCE LIVERMORE LABORATORY
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