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 ...

The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI. The characteristic luminosity of the kilonova is approximately equal to the radioactive heating rate at this escape timescale: A ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...