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B: 2·3

elements · 5 / 118 · All 118

B

Boron

5
Mass 
10.81
Lifeforce 
Air

It washes clothes, hardens steel, kills fungi. And it dates from before the galaxies. No star ever forged boron: it was born where cosmic rays collide. A handful of its crystals can be harder than diamond.

Kites and birds weave a bridge of threads between two hills.
Plate · Air Air never keeps to itself. It connects what two hills hold apart.

Boron. Element five. Hardens steel, kills fungi, washes clothes. A handful of its crystals can be harder than diamond. Forged not in stars but in cosmic ray collisions, a wanderer from before there were galaxies.

Lab note · Atomic number 5; not formed in stars, but in collisions of cosmic rays.

Tool · Cosmic origin

Where your atoms come from

B · Star fusion

Forged in the cores of living stars over billions of years of stellar fusion.

14 of the 118 elements share this origin.

Choose a stage: click, or arrow keys. · Cosmic nucleosynthesis · current standard model

Tool · Periodic table

Your place in the system

  • Fire
  • Water
  • Air
  • Earth
  • Source

Click any element to go there.