Violent explosions of massive, magnetized stars may forge most of the universe’s heavy elements, such as silver and uranium. The ancient star’s elements aren’t from the remnants of a neutron star ...

A: The lightest elements in the universe — hydrogen, helium, and a little lithium — were born shortly after the Big Bang. The heavier elements, up to iron, were forged later, in the hearts of stars ...

All around us are elements forged in stars, from the nickel and copper in coins to the gold and silver in jewelry. Scientists have a good understanding of how these elements form: In many cases, a ...

In an ejection that would have caused its rotation to slow, a magnetar is depicted losing material into space in this artist’s concept. The magnetar’s strong, twisted magnetic field lines (shown in ...

Up to a certain point, the elements of the periodic table are largely formed in the hearts of stars. But for elements that are heavy enough (heavier than zinc typically), fusing two lighter nuclei ...

For the first time, astronomers have definitively ID’d a specific heavy element forged by a neutron star merger. Theories of physics have long predicted that about half of the universe’s heavy ...

The origin of heavy elements in our universe is theorized to be the result of neutron star collisions, which produce conditions hot and dense enough for free neutrons to merge with atomic nuclei and ...

Carl Sagan once famously said: “We are made of star stuff.” He was referring to the origin of many elements — like the calcium in our bones and the iron in our blood — that are forged in the last ...

The Big Bang explosion at the start of the Universe was responsible for the production of the light elements hydrogen and helium, along with some fraction of lithium. All of the other elements in ...

Two teams of scientists may have found a way to discover where the elements that compose stars, planets, and even us, came from. While physicists have known for some time that the lighter elements of ...

Radioactive decay is a powerful tool. The predictable decay of radioactive isotopes can be used for far more than just dating old rocks. Scientists have used radioactive isotopes to determine the age ...