Producing fusion between the nitrogen nucleus and a proton is not difficult itself, but a difficulty lies in obtaining it at the same energy it occurs in stars: a relatively low energy, thanks to which the phenomena is quite slow, corresponding to a very few reactions a day (a lucky case for our planet, because if these phenomena occurred rapidly, the Sun would have burned up its `fuel’ in a few time and this would have made life -as we know it -impossible). “In an ordinary laboratory settled on surface, the effects of the reaction studied by Luna would be totally hidden by similar, but much more abundant effects due to reactions caused by the cosmic rays rain that crashes into our planet without interruption. The Gran Sasso Laboratories are on the contrary located under 1.400 meters of rocks, which constitute an impenetrable barrier for almost all the particles coming from Space. Thanks to these particular conditions we could carry out our experiment”, says Carlo Broggini.
The result has been surprising: the carbon-nitrogen -oxygen cycle occurs two times more slowly than expected. “The most fascinating aspect of this study is that another estimate of Universe age flows from it. Actually, the age of the most ancient stars, those that form the so-called globular star clusters, is calculated on the base of the light spectra they emit, supposing we know the carbon-nitrogen-oxygen cycle’s velocity As this last one seems to be slower than previewed, the age of the globular star clusters’ has also been newly calculated and grown-up of about one billion years. As a consequence, in the light of Luna’s new data, the age of our Universe passes from the previous estimate of about 13 billions years to that of about 14 billions years” explains Eugenio Coccia, director of Gran Sasso National Laboratories.
Luna’s results offer also another information: neutrinos provided with high energy produced by carbon – nitrogen – oxygen cycle are the half part of what expected, because this last one is responsible of only the 0,8% of the energy emitted by the Sun (and not the 1,6%, as believed). This data is of great interest for astroparticles physicists engaged in experiments that are specifically focused on neutrinos of relatively high energy, as it is for example the experiment Borexino, which is in preparation at Gran Sasso National Laboratories, or the Japanese Kamland.
If dark matter truly consists of weakly interacting massive particles, could such a WIMP facilitate fusion by gravitationally attracting two nuclei closer together than they otherwise would have by passing in between them? And would this have a significant effect on fusion rates? Because as it stands the oldest stars seem to be older than Hubble says the universe is. Actually, why invoke novel physics when the fault lies in the stellar models. As far as I know, we still don’t fully understand our own star.
And I would go really far here. One day they will discover that the “big bang” never happened, it was as real as turtles below the earth, the Ptolemaic model of the universe or the ether.
WIMPSs are supposed to be weakly interacting massive particles I believe. Weakly interacting is the key part here. Gravity effects are dwarfed by the other forces at an atomic level so something like a single WIMP passing between two atoms and faciliting fusion at any significantly higher rate I’d guess would be unlikely.
There are quite a few variables that it seems are not taken into consideration for their conclusions here though that may make them all invalid. For one, not all stars are like our sun. To assume that all starts since the “begining of the universe” acted the same way as our sun does seems to be quite a risky assumption to me.
Wouldn’t a super massive star, which are believed to have much shorter lives than our sun, also potentially have a much higher
carbon-nitrogen-oxygen cycle as well? Isn’t it also possible that a star like our sun would have been atypical early in the universe?
There are many other assumptions that seem to have been made to reach their conclusion that I would think are far from safe assumptions.
The observations are interesting and can help further understandings of the universe, but their conclusions seem to be based on a lot of assumptions many of which probably aren’t accurate.