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nivlark t1_iuowfau wrote

Not necessarily, because the restrictions they described would still exist: lithium would still be incredibly scarce, and the conditions simply aren't extreme enough to get the triple-alpha process running, counter-intuitive as that may sound. The problem here is that fusing two ^(4)He nuclei produces ^(8)Be, which has an astonishingly short half-life of one ten thousand trillionth of a second. Only inside the core of a massive star is the reaction rate high enough to fuse a third helium nucleus to make stable ^(12)C before the ^(8)Be falls apart.

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