Abundance of the chemical elements stars. Lithium, beryllium and boron are rare because although they are produced by nuclear fusion, they are then destroyed by other reactions in the stars. The elements from carbon to iron are relatively more common in the universe because of the ease of making them in supernova nucleosynthesis. Elements of higher atomic number than iron (element 26) become progressively more rare in the universe, because they increasingly absorb stellar energy in being produced. Elements with even atomic numbers are generally more common than their neighbors in the periodic table, also due to favorable energetics of formation. The abundance of elements
History of the periodic table (Z=19), despite the fact that argon's atomic weight of 39.9 is greater than the atomic weight of potassium (39.1). The new order was in agreement with the chemical properties of these elements, since argon is a noble gas and potassium is an alkali metal. Similarly, Moseley placed cobalt before nickel and was able to explain that tellurium occurs before iodine, without revising the experimental atomic weight of tellurium, as had been proposed by Mendeleev. Moseley's research showed that there were gaps in the periodic table at atomic numbers 43 and 61, which are now known to be occupied by technetium