A Los Alamos simulation of an accretion disk after the collision of two neutron stars. This event generates both light (blue) and heavy (red) elements. The origin of heavy elements in our universe is ...

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 ...

A schematic diagram of proton and neutron distributions for mirror nuclei argon-31 and aluminum-31. Left side is the weakly bound proton-rich nucleus argon-31, which is predicted to exhibit a ...

Note: This video is designed to help the teacher better understand the lesson and is NOT intended to be shown to students. It includes observations and conclusions that students are meant to make on ...

Although the periodic table is filled with elements, nuclear fusion at the center of stars can only produce elements with atomic masses lower than iron—after than, neutron captures processes known as ...

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 ...