  In the early universe, following the nucleosynthesis, conditions were right
for recombination processes to take place yielding neutral atoms H, He and Li.
The understanding so far in astrophysics is that the first molecule to be
formed was HeH+ by radiative association (He + H+ -> HeH+ + h(nu) and He+ + H
-> HeH+ + h(nu). The recent report by Guesten et al (Nature, 568, 357, 2019) of
detection of HeH+ in planetary Nebula NGC 7027 confirms its presence, but it
does not conclusively prove the origin of this species. To create molecules
from free moving quasi-ions surrounded by an electronic cloud, the
Born-Oppenheimer-Huang (BOH) theory furnishes two kinds of forces, namely, one
that results from the Potential Energy Surfaces (PESs) and the other from
Non-Adiabatic Coupling Terms (NACTs). Whereas the PESs are known to manage slow
moving quasi-ions the NACTs, with their, frequently, infinitely large values at
the vicinity of the singularities can control the fast moving quasi-ions. To
achieve that the BOH equation indicates that the NACTs are affecting the fast
moving quasi-ions directly and if they are attributed with dissipative features
or in other words to behave as a Friction Force they indeed could serve (like
any other ordinary friction) as moderators for the fast atomic(ionic) species.
It is proposed in the present paper that the triatomic HeH2+ was the precursor
to HeH+ and it could have been formed by the (He, H, H)+ nuclei coming together
under the electron cloud, facilitated by the NACTs between different electronic
states acting as an astronomical friction force. This is possible because of
the singularities in the NACTs for triatomic systems and NOT for diatomic
systems. Although the existence of HeH2+ was established in the laboratory in
1996, it has not been detected in the interstellar media so far. But, there is
no reason why it cannot be detected in near future.
