The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory is able to smash gold ions together to create conditions under which individual protons and neutrons melt into a plasma consisting of quarks and gluons, at temperatures in excess of 4 trillion K. This is believed to approximate the state of the universe approximately seconds after the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago. By about seconds the quarks have combined into color-neutral hadrons, most notably protons and neutrons. Also, by a process not yet fully understood, almost all the antimatter particles have been annihilated, leaving our universe composed almost exclusively of matter. By the first three minutes, all the protons and neutrons have combined into the lighter elements deuterium, helium, and lithium, but with hydrogen (protons) still remaining the predominant species. After stars and their supernovas evolve, nucleosynthesis accounts for all the heavier elements.