Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 8, 2026

Laboratory Simulation of an IronII-rich Precambrian Marine Upwelling System to Explore the Growth of Photosynthetic Bacteria
Published on: July 24, 2016
Pure iron grains are rare in the universe
Yuki Kimura1, Kyoko K Tanaka1, Takaya Nozawa2
1Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-0819, Japan.
Abstract:
The abundant forms in which the major elements in the universe exist have been determined from numerous astronomical observations and meteoritic analyses. Iron (Fe) is an exception, in that only depletion of gaseous Fe has been detected in the interstellar medium, suggesting that Fe is condensed into a solid, possibly the astronomically invisible metal. To determine the primary form of Fe, we replicated the formation of Fe grains in gaseous ejecta of evolved stars by means of microgravity experiments. We found that the sticking probability for the formation of Fe grains is extremely small; only a few atoms will stick per hundred thousand collisions so that homogeneous nucleation of metallic Fe grains is highly ineffective, even in the Fe-rich ejecta of type Ia supernovae. This implies that most Fe is locked up as grains of Fe compounds or as impurities accreted onto other grains in the interstellar medium.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Detection of Black Holes
Their closest cousins are neutron stars, which are composed almost entirely of neutrons packed against each other, making them extremely dense. A neutron star has the same mass as the Sun but its diameter is only a few kilometers. Therefore, the escape velocity from their surface is close to the speed of light.
Not until the 1960s, when the first neutron...
Ferromagnetism
Nuclear Transmutation
Diamagnetism
Diamagnetism was discovered by Anton Brugmans in 1778 when he observed that bismuth gets repelled by magnetic fields, thus theorizing that diamagnets get repelled by magnets....
Minerals
Major...
Schwarzschild Radius and Event Horizon
The minimum speed required to launch a projectile from the surface of an object to which it is gravitationally bound so that it eventually escapes the object’s gravitational field is called the escape velocity. The escape velocity is independent of the mass of the object. Merging the idea of escape...

