This ultimate neutron star merger releases a wealth of free neutrons, which are particles normally bound up with protons in atomic nuclei. This can allow other atomic nuclei in these environments to quickly grab these free neutrons — a process called rapid neutron capture or the “r-process.” This allows the atomic nuclei to grow heavier, creating superheavy elements that are unstable. These superheavy elements can then undergo fission to split down into lighter, stable elements like gold.
In 2020, Mumpower predicted how the “fission fragments” of r-process-created nuclei would be distributed. Following this, Mumpower’s collaborator and TRIUMF scientist Nicole Vassh calculated how the r-process would lead to the co-production of light precision metals such as ruthenium, rhodium, palladium and silver — as well as rare earth nuclei, like europium, gadolinium, dysprosium and holmium.
One reason is that the dust cloud that formed our solar system have already gone through several rounds of of star formation and supernova to seed it with the heavy elements.
The second reason is that when the sun reached fusion and started pumping out the solar wind it pushed a lot of the lighter elements to further out in the solar system. That is why the rocky planets are the inner four and the gas giants are the outer four.
Earth has a much higher proportion of heaviest elements than the proto-cloud (which was metal rich in the first place) because of the second reason.
Well there’s a whole lot more dust out there, that should have similar composition to the solar system. So much so, that every “empty” cubic light year of space contains about 28.8 solar masses. That’s a whole lot of everything just floating around waiting for gravity to do its thing and clump them into things.
This ultimate neutron star merger releases a wealth of free neutrons, which are particles normally bound up with protons in atomic nuclei. This can allow other atomic nuclei in these environments to quickly grab these free neutrons — a process called rapid neutron capture or the “r-process.” This allows the atomic nuclei to grow heavier, creating superheavy elements that are unstable. These superheavy elements can then undergo fission to split down into lighter, stable elements like gold.
In 2020, Mumpower predicted how the “fission fragments” of r-process-created nuclei would be distributed. Following this, Mumpower’s collaborator and TRIUMF scientist Nicole Vassh calculated how the r-process would lead to the co-production of light precision metals such as ruthenium, rhodium, palladium and silver — as well as rare earth nuclei, like europium, gadolinium, dysprosium and holmium.
In a way it’s baffling that we have so many “heavy” elements on Earth, given the way they are formed and how (almost) impossibly rare they should be.
One reason is that the dust cloud that formed our solar system have already gone through several rounds of of star formation and supernova to seed it with the heavy elements.
The second reason is that when the sun reached fusion and started pumping out the solar wind it pushed a lot of the lighter elements to further out in the solar system. That is why the rocky planets are the inner four and the gas giants are the outer four.
Earth has a much higher proportion of heaviest elements than the proto-cloud (which was metal rich in the first place) because of the second reason.
Well there’s a whole lot more dust out there, that should have similar composition to the solar system. So much so, that every “empty” cubic light year of space contains about 28.8 solar masses. That’s a whole lot of everything just floating around waiting for gravity to do its thing and clump them into things.