Not such a versatile atom factory (Image: NASA/SAO/F.Seward/ESA/ASU/J.Hester & A.Loll/JPL-Caltech/Univ Minn/R.Gehrz)
THEY are the brightest of stars, but supernovae may not forge the heaviest elements. That’s the suggestion arising from analysis of a new model of the particle winds that rush from the cores of supernovae.
The only two elements formed in abundance shortly after the big bang were hydrogen and helium. All the heavier ones must have been forged by fusing these smaller nuclei together. The high pressures and temperatures inside ordinary stars can account for elements up to a certain size, but making elements bigger than iron, which has…
