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A neutron star merger is the stellar collision of neutron stars. When two neutron stars fall into mutual orbit, they gradually spiral inward due to the loss of energy emitted as gravitational radiation. [1] When they finally meet, their merger leads to the formation of either a more massive neutron star, or—if the mass of the remnant exceeds ...
Neutron star mergers are a recently discovered major source of elements produced in the r-process. When two neutron stars collide, a significant amount of neutron-rich matter may be ejected which then quickly forms heavy elements. Cosmic ray spallation is a process wherein cosmic rays impact nuclei and fragment them.
In nuclear astrophysics, the rapid neutron-capture process, also known as the r-process, is a set of nuclear reactions that is responsible for the creation of approximately half of the atomic nuclei heavier than iron, the "heavy elements", with the other half produced by the p-process and s-process.
In astrophysics, stellar nucleosynthesis is the creation of chemical elements by nuclear fusion reactions within stars. Stellar nucleosynthesis has occurred since the original creation of hydrogen, helium and lithium during the Big Bang. As a predictive theory, it yields accurate estimates of the observed abundances of the elements.
In July 2019, astronomers reported that a new method to determine the Hubble constant, and resolve the discrepancy of earlier methods, has been proposed based on the mergers of pairs of neutron stars, following the detection of the neutron star merger of GW170817. [108] [109] Their measurement of the Hubble constant is 70.3 +5.3 −5.0 (km/s ...
The slow neutron-capture process, or s-process, is a series of reactions in nuclear astrophysics that occur in stars, particularly asymptotic giant branch stars. The s -process is responsible for the creation ( nucleosynthesis ) of approximately half the atomic nuclei heavier than iron .
Helium, oxygen, neon, iron—they all come from the fusion that takes place in dying stars. But we have a lot of elements that are more massive than iron ; it’s only element 26 of 118, after all.
Nuclear physics experiments address stability (i.e., lifetimes and masses) for atomic nuclei well beyond the regime of stable nuclides into the realm of radioactive/unstable nuclei, almost to the limits of bound nuclei (the drip lines), and under high density (up to neutron star matter) and high temperature (plasma temperatures up to 10 9 K ...