So if that's how much lithium we have, how did we make it? Instead, it is part of the most common class of meteorite found today, and analysis of these meteorites helps us estimate the amount of lithium present throughout the galaxy. meteorite is high in iron, but not high enough to be a stony-iron meteorite.
From the meteorites we've examined, we can reconstruct exactly how much lithium is found throughout the entire galaxy: about 1,000 solar masses worth.Īn H-Chondrite meteorite found in Northern Chile shows chondrules and metal grains. But it's preserved in asteroids and comets: the pristine material that formed our Solar System in its earliest stages. Lithium is extremely fragile, with just three protons in its nucleus and a very loosely-held outer electron, so it's easy to destroy in stars and very easy to ionize (and, therefore, to miss) when we look for it astronomically. By measuring how much lithium is in our own Solar System, and understanding how our Solar System fits into the larger context of our galaxy, we can arrive at a very good estimate for how much lithium is found throughout the entire galaxy. With some 400 billion stars in our galaxy, we've measured enough of them - their masses, radii, color, temperature, abundances of heavy elements, etc. - to know how they compare to our own Sun. If you want to know how much lithium is out there in the galaxy, you must arrive at some way to measure it. By studying the stars in our galaxy and measuring properties of our own Solar System, we can infer properties about the galaxy as a whole.
galaxies, based on measurements of nearly 1.7 billion stars. This image is a single projection of Gaia's all-sky view of our Milky Way Galaxy and neighboring.
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