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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Many space-lovers know the phrase “We are all made of star stuff.” And it’s true — our planet formed from the dust cloud left over from the formation of our Sun, and from the planet, all life. That ...