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
Periodic table it is relatively easy to predict the chemical properties of an element if one knows the properties of the elements around it. , the periodic table has 118 confirmed elements, from element 1 (hydrogen) to 118 (oganesson). Elements 113, 115, 117 and 118, the most recent discoveries, were officially confirmed by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) in December 2015. Their proposed names, nihonium (Nh), moscovium (Mc), tennessine (Ts) and oganesson (Og) respectively, were announced by the IUPAC in June 2016 and made official in November 2016. The first 94 elements occur naturally; the remaining 24, americium