How heavy can an element be? An international team of researchers has found that ancient stars were capable of producing elements with atomic masses greater than 260, heavier than any element on the ...

For the first time, a freshly made heavy element, strontium, has been detected in space, in the aftermath of a merger of two neutron stars. This finding was observed by ESO’s X-shooter spectrograph on ...

Alpha particles, as the nuclei of the helium atom are also called, play a decisive role in the formation of heavier elements. Carbon, for instance, is formed from the fusion of these alpha particles.

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Dec. 7, 2023 — The elements above iron on the periodic table are thought to be created in cataclysmic explosions like the merger of two neutron stars or in rare classes of supernovae ...

You might owe that gold necklace around your neck to a moody, long-dead star from the universe’s ancient past. According to a new study, magnetars—a rare type of neutron star—may have forged some of ...

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has made a historic discovery by detecting a heavy element resulting from the merger of two neutron stars. This revelation sheds light on the elusive processes behind ...

Research by scientists in South Africa and India is shedding light on the nuclear processes that lead to the formation of heavy elements after the collision of neutron stars, and why those elements ...