Universal Big Bang Lithium Deficit Confirmed

An anonymous reader writes New observations of the star cluster Messier 54 show that it is just as deficient in lithium as our own galaxy, furthering a mystery about the element's big bang origins. "Most of the light chemical element lithium now present in the Universe was produced during the Big Bang, along with hydrogen and helium, but in much smaller quantities. Astronomers can calculate quite accurately how much lithium they expect to find in the early Universe, and from this work out how much they should see in old stars. But the numbers don't match — there is about three times less lithium in stars than expected. This mystery remains unsolved, despite several decades of work."

Comments

Quite accurately?

[The Mysterious Dr. X]

"Astronomers can calculate quite accurately how much lithium they expect to find in the early Universe," can they? How do they know it's accurate? What control values are they using?

It's not entirely semantic, either; it goes on to say, "But the numbers don't match."

So how is that "quite accurate"?

I thought this was solved by Korn et al.

[Prune]

http://www.nature.com/nature/j... Can any astro-types chime in on this?