I’ve heard that there is a class of stars whose spectra show the presence of technetium- an unstable element not otherwise found in nature (except maybe for vanishingly small traces from the spontaneous fission of uranium). This would apparently mean that nuclear reactions are taking place on these stars surfaces instead of their cores. But none of the sites I could find mention them in any detail. Any good astrophysics sites on this subject?
Help me out here… Technetium is a transuranic element, right? What its atomic number…I don’t have access to a periodic table around here…DUH! the web!
I’ll be right back…
Oddly enough, it’s NOT transuranic. Atomic number 43, even though it has no stable isotopes.
http://www.webelements.com is a wonderful periodic table / elements resource. Nonetheless, their entry does no more than just mention its presence in the spectra of some stars:
http://www.webelements.com/webelements/elements/text/Tc/key.html
Although it has no stable isotopes, [sup]97[/sup]Tc, [sup]98[/sup]Tc, and [sup]99[/sup]Tc have half-lives of 2.6-, 4.2-, and 21 million years. That amount of time might allow any Tc being made in the core time to well to the surface and emit its spectrum.
I found this on the Los Alamos Periodic Table site:
The Bad Astronomer is a poster here. Maybe he has some info on Tc in stars.
Bumped to top so Bad Astronomer will see it in recent posts.