Transactinium elements in the evolving universe

An exponential model of continuous galactic synthesis is used to analyze new data on the abundance in meteorites, the Earth, and the moon of several transactinium nuclei, particularly plutonium-244. It is shown that nucleosynthesis in our galaxy occurred over a period of six billion years up to the formation of the solar system. The possibility of a change in nuclear stability in the past as the result of change in the universal constants is also discussed. It is shown that this possibility is greatly limited but that a direct check of the constancy of the constants could be obtained by comparison of the radii of pleochroic rings in old micas with contemporary $\alpha$-particle ranges.