ABSTRACT
Apart of nuclear fusion, an important keyword of nuclear astrophysics is nucleosynthesis. It is responsible for the production of the chemical elements that constitute the baryonic matter of the universe by the process of thermonuclear fusion reactions. The theory of stellar nucleosynthesis reproduces the chemical abundances observed in the solar system and galaxy, which from hydrogen to uranium, show an extremely varied distribution spanning twelve orders of magnitude. While impressive, these data were used to formulate the theory, and a scientific theory must be predictive in order to have any merit. This was a longstanding concern in the nuclear astrophysics community such that it was colloquially known simply as the Solar neutrino problem. The observable neutrino flux from nuclear reactors is much larger than that of the Sun, and thus Davis and others were primarily motivated to look for solar neutrinos for astronomical reasons.
