Neutrinos from exploding stars may have created most of the universe’s fluorine

Science : Whereas oxygen and neon, which are relatively common in the universe, are created in the interiors of massive stars, fluorine, which is comparatively rare, may be created when stars explode , say researchers. Using one of the telescopes at Kitt Peak in Arizona, Catherine Pilachowski of Indiana University Bloomington and Cameron Pace of Southern Utah University in Cedar City looked for a readily detectable manifestation of fluorine, hydrogen fluoride, in some 79 stars and found the element in 51 of them—a relatively high percentage. The researchers attribute the fluorine abundance to supernova explosions, which can release as many as 10⁵⁸ energetic neutrinos, some of which may knock off a proton from neon nuclei. Because hydrogen fluoride molecules break down at high temperatures, fine-tuning the fluorine measurements will require perfecting the ability to accurately determine how hot the star in question is.