Researchers believe that the Big Bang had created a few elements and lithium was among them. However, scientists have been long-baffled by the task of understanding the amounts of this element observed in stars around us today.

Quantity of lithium in older stars is less than expected whereas younger stars contain them up to 10 times more. Astronomers thought in 1970s that novae have been the sources of much of the extra lithium found in young stars. Novae are stellar explosions that expel material into the space between the stars. But no clarity on the matter has come so far from several novae.

Now, Dr. Luca Izzo from the Sapienza University of Rome and his colleagues have put into use ESO's telescopes in Chile to gain insight into a nova called the Nova Centauri 2013.

The star is also known as V1369 Centauri. Its explosion took place in the southern skies close to the bright star Beta Centauri in December 2013 and it was claimed to be the brightest nova so far in this century.

The clear signature of lithium being expelled at 2 million km per hour from the star was revealed by the new data. "It is a very important step forward. If we imagine the history of the chemical evolution of the Milky Way as a big jigsaw, then lithium from novae was one of the most important and puzzling missing pieces", said team member Dr. Massimo Della Valle from the INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte, Naples, and ICRANet, Pescara, Italy.

Until this lithium puzzle is solved, no model of the Big Bang can be claimed to be perfect.