Those gold coins and bars in your collection originated in outer-space. That much is certain, say astrophysicists. But the precise beginnings of gold and other heavy metals is now in question after the discovery, observation, and analysis of the collapse and subsequent explosion of a massive star, a supernova, believed to be the brightest gamma-ray burst of all time, using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
Scientists have long believed that supernovas are responsible for the creation of heavy elements, including gold, silver, and platinum. The idea is that when a giant star can no longer create adequate energy, its atmosphere collapses, leading protons and electrons to form zero-charged neutrons. The explosion sends neutrons rushing into seed nuclei, like iron. Some of the neutrons decay into protons, increasing the atomic number to form new elements. This is known as the rapid neutron-capture process, or r-process.
Evidence of this process should have been apparent to the team of astronomers who observed the historic burst, which they call the B.O.A.T. (brightest of all time). But in a new paper published in the journal Nature Astronomy the astronomers report the explosion was no goldmine. “We did not see signatures of these heavy elements, suggesting that extremely energetic GRBs (gamma-ray bursts) like the B.O.A.T. do not produce these elements,” said Peter Blanchard, postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University.
Astrophysicists have been able to confirm the creation of heavy elements, like gold, through the r-process in the merger of two neutron stars. But scientists are convinced there are other ways to produce heavy elements because neutron-star mergers are very infrequent, not nearly an adequate source to produce all the heavy elements in the universe. Thus, scientists will continue to search for a full explanation of the origin of our most precious metals.
