By Andrew Grant
An underground experiment has imitated conditions from just after the Big Bang to produce the universe’s most confounding element, lithium. The experiment’s result reinforces what scientists call the lithium problem, a discrepancy between the amounts of the element thought to have been produced 13.8 billion years ago and the amounts observed in ancient stars. This discrepancy challenges theories about the universe’s earliest moments.
Carbon, oxygen and nearly all other naturally occurring elements were forged in the cores of stars. That’s not the case for lithium.