Carbon-12 Carbon-12 Carbon-12 (C) is the more abundant of the two stable isotopes of carbon (Carbon-13 being the other), amounting to 98.93% of the element carbon; its abundance is due to the triple-alpha process by which it is created in stars. Carbon-12 is of particular importance in its use as the standard from which atomic masses of all nuclides are measured, thus, its atomic mass is exactly 12 daltons by definition. Its nucleus contains 6 protons and 6 neutrons. Before 1959 both the IUPAP and IUPAC used oxygen to define the mole; the chemists defining the mole as the number of
Standard atomic weight universe. Argon produced directly by stellar nucleosynthesis, is dominated by the alpha-process nuclide . Correspondingly, solar argon contains 84.6% (according to solar wind measurements), and the ratio of the three isotopes Ar : Ar : Ar in the atmospheres of the outer planets is 8400 : 1600 : 1. The atomic weight of argon in the Sun and most of the universe, therefore, would be only approximately 36.3. Famously, the published atomic weight value comes with an uncertainty. This uncertainty (and related: precision) follows from its definition, the source being "terrestrial and stable". Systematic causes for uncertainty are: These three