What elements compose the overwhelming majority of any given nebula?
Answer
Hydrogen and helium
Nebulae are fundamentally immense accumulations of gas and dust, where the gaseous component is overwhelmingly dominated by the two lightest and most abundant elements in the universe: hydrogen and helium. This composition mirrors the starting material of the cosmos laid down after the Big Bang. Hydrogen typically forms the bulk of the mass, and helium is the second most abundant. Together, these two gases form the massive, diffuse reservoirs that gravity pulls together to initiate star formation.
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