Five Most Abundant Elements in the Universe

Jennifer Hall

Chemistry 1010 Terry Roylance November 27, 2013

The five most common elements in the known universe are hydrogen, helium, oxygen, carbon, and neon in this order. (John, 2013) (Scott, 2013) The reason I say the known universe is because scientists have not discovered the entire universe. From earth, we cannot even see a fraction of the universe. So for the sake of this paper I am only referencing what is actually known to mankind as of 2013. When you name off a bunch of elements, there is a chance the person you are talking to has heard of them before; however, do you think they really know anything about those elements? I am going to teach you the basics of what each element is, about its discovery, where it can be found in the known universe, and what we use each element for here on earth. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the known universe. It is the first element on the Periodic Table of Elements. Hydrogen is represented by the symbol H and has an atomic weight of 1.00794. It is a colorless gas that is classified as a non-metallic element. It has a melting point of C

and a boiling point of -

. (Thomas Jefferson National

Accelerator Facility - Office of Science Education) Hydrogen was discovered in 1766 by Henry Cavendish. Henry Cavendish was born October 10, 1731, and died February 24, 1810. He attended Peterhouse College, Cambridge for three years but left before attaining any degree. Cavendish dissolved metals in acids creating hydrogen which he called an inflammable air. (Watson, 2013) Hydrogen is found in all life; it is also found in our sun. It is tremendously copious in water and it is also found in volcanos which emit hydrogen gas when they erupt. Hydrogen is the

raw fuel that most stars burn to produce energy. Even though hydrogen is the most abundant element in the known universe it is rarely found in its pure form here on earth. Historically hydrogen was used in airships until May 6, 1937, when the Hindenburg airship caught fire. However, hydrogen was not the cause of the fire and it would have burned even if an inflammable gas had been used. Hydrogen was also used to create the hydrogen bomb, which contains deuterium and tritium. The first hydrogen bomb was detonated on Enewetak Atoll in the Pacific on November 1, 1952. It started the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. (Winter, 2012) Current uses for hydrogen are largely gasoline which is a mixture of alkanes, alkane cyclic and aromatic compounds; and fertilizers that use hydrocarbons. It is also used in hydrogen peroxide and the fuel cell. It is said that the most important use for hydrogen is ammonia synthesis. (B.V., 2013) Helium is the second most abundant element in the known universe. It is the second element on the Periodic Table of Elements. It is represented by the symbol He and has an atomic weight of 4.002602. Helium is a colorless gas that is classified as a non-metallic element. t has a melting point of C

and a boiling point of -26

. (Thomas Jefferson National

Accelerator Facility - Office of Science Education) Helium was discovered in 1895 by Sir William Ramsay. Sir William Ramsay was born October 2, 1852, and died July 23, 1916. He studied at the University of Glasgow in Scotland for four years, yet left without a degree. Ramsey was looking for argon when he treated cleveite with

mineral acids, after separating nitrogen and oxygen from the gas he noticed a bright yellow line that matched the spectral line observed in the sun. (Watson, 2013) On earth, most of the helium comes from radioactive decay; which makes it extremely rare. The majority of helium is found in stars and the interstellar medium. This is due to a fusion reaction that powers most stars fusing single hydrogen atoms to create helium atoms. Helium is the only cooler capable of reaching temperatures lower than 15 kelvin. (Chemicool.com, 2013) When you hear helium you think balloons. Since helium is lighter than air it lifts the balloons and keeps them up. Helium is also used in deep sea diving, most people think that a scuba tank is only full of oxygen, but pure oxygen can be damaging to our bodies. The actual combination is usually 20 percent oxygen and 80 percent helium. Oxygen is the third most abundant element in the known universe. It is the eighth element on the Periodic Table of Elements; represented by the symbol O and has an atomic weight of 15.9994. Oxygen is colorless as a gas and blue as a liquid and is classified as a non-metallic element t has a melting point of C

and a boiling point of -

. (Thomas Jefferson

National Accelerator Facility - Office of Science Education) Oxygen was discovered on August 1, 1774, by Joseph Priestly. Joseph Priestly was born March 13, 1733, and died February 6, 1804. He was an English clergyman, political theorist, and physical scientist. By heating red mercuric oxide, Priestly produced a colorless gas that would allow a candle to burn and a mouse to thrive in this gas. (Watson, 2013) Oxygen is found in / of the mass of the earths crust, 2/3 of the mass in the human body, and 9/10 of the mass in water. (Bentor, 2012) Surprisingly there is only 20% oxygen in the

air we breathe. Large amounts of oxygen can be extracted from liquefied air through a process called fractional distillation. (Chemicool.com, 2013) The most obvious use for oxygen is the support of life; most living things require oxygen to survive. Some other uses for oxygen are: melting, refining, and manufacturing of steel and other metals; rocket propulsion; mining, production, and manufacturing of stone and glass products. (B.V., 2013) Carbon is the fourth most abundant element in the known universe. It is the sixth element on the Periodic Table of Elements; represented by the symbol C and has an atomic weight of 12.0107. Carbon is black as graphite and colorless as a diamond. It is classified as a non-metallic element. Carbon has a melting point of 3500.
C

and a boiling point of

. (Thomas

Jefferson National Accelerator Facility - Office of Science Education) Carbon was known to the ancients and its exact discovery is unknown to the modern world. The ancients knew carbon in the form of diamonds, charcoal, graphite, and soot. However, they did not know they were the same substance just different variations. It was not until Antoine Lavoisier listed carbon in his 1789 textbook that carbon was recognized as an element. (Watson, 2013) Carbon is abundant in the sun, the stars, comets, and in the atmosphere of most planets. There are three naturally occurring allotropes that are known to exist; amorphous, graphite, and diamond.

Common uses for Carbon are fossil fuels or methane gas, diamonds, petroleum, radiocarbon dating, smoke detectors, graphite carbon used as charcoal in cooking and artwork, gasoline, and kerosene. Neon is the fifth most abundant element in the known universe. It is the tenth element on the Periodic Table of Elements; represented by the symbol Ne and has an atomic weight of 20.1797. Neon is a colorless as a gas that is classified as a non-metallic element. It has a melting point of C

and a boiling point of -

. (Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility

- Office of Science Education) Neon was discovered in 1898 by Sir William Ramsay and Morris Travers when they duplicated their experiment that isolated krypton gas, but this time allowed solid argon to evaporate slowly under reduced pressure. When they put the new gas into their atomic spectrometer is glowed a brilliant red. Ramsay named the new gas neon, basing it off of the Greek word neos meaning new. (Watson, 2013) Neon forms in stars with a mass of eight or more earth suns. It is created by the fusion of a helium nucleus with an oxygen nucleus. On earth, neon is not created but extracted by liquefying air and then using fractional distillation to separate the neon from the remainder. (Winter, 2012) Neon is used in making neon advertising signs, wave meter tubes (an instrument used for measuring the frequency or wavelength of radio waves), lightning arrestors (a device used on power systems of about 1000 volts to protect other equipment from lightning and switch surges),

and television tubes. Liquid neon has over 40 times more refrigerating capacity than liquid helium and three times that of liquid hydrogen. (Chemicool.com, 2013) It is amazing that the universe we live in is made up of such seemingly insignificant things. Everything around us is a product of them, either directly or indirectly. Our own bodies are little more than a combination of these elements, among others. To the naked eye, it may not seem like there is so much of any of these elements; but when you look close enough, you can find them just about everywhere on Earth, and in the stars

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