A LONG-STANDING mystery over the amount of helium-3 in the universe seems to have been solved, finally reconciling two of the most successful ideas in astrophysics.
One of these ideas, the big bang theory, suggests that large amounts of hydrogen and helium-3, and a smattering of other light elements, must have formed when the universe burst into existence. Astronomers have found more or less exactly the amount of helium-3 in the universe that should have been created in the big bang.
The trouble is that the other theory – the story of how stars form and develop – suggests that…
