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 ...

In a study published in The Astrophysical Journal, scientists have proposed the features of rapid neutron capture process (r-process) nucleosynthesis in a novel scenario, common envelope jet ...

Heavy duty: artist’s impression of a kilonova releasing r-process elements into the cosmos. (Courtesy: ESO/L Calçada/M Kornmesser) The mystery of where heavy elements such as gold and silver come from ...

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 first stars of the universe were monstrous beasts. Comprised only of hydrogen and helium, they could be 300 times more massive than the sun. Within them, the first of the heavier elements were ...