A group of researchers has, for the first time, identified rare earth elements produced by neutron star mergers.
A group of researchers has, for the first time, identified rare earth elements produced by neutron star mergers.
When two neutron stars spiral inwards and merge, the resulting explosion produces a large amount of the heavy elements that make up our universe. The first confirmed example of this process was an event in 2017 named GW 170817. Yet, even now five years later, identifying the specific elements created in neutron star mergers has eluded scientists, except for strontium identified in the optical spectra.
A research group led by Nanae Domoto, a graduate student at the Graduate School of Science at Tohoku University and a research fellow at the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), has systematically studied the spectra from this kilonova—bright emissions caused by the radioactive decay of freshly synthesized nuclei that were ejected during the GW 170817 merger.
