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Neutron Stars Create Gold and Platinum in Their Wake

This illustration shows the hot, dense, expanding cloud of debris stripped from the neutron stars just before they collided.
This illustration shows the hot, dense, expanding cloud of debris stripped from neutron stars just before they collided.

This illustration shows the hot, dense, expanding cloud of debris stripped from neutron stars just before they collided. This cloud produces a kilonova; that is an astronomical event that occurs when two neutron stars or a neutron star and a black hole merge into each other. This cloud shows the visible and infrared light. Within this neutron-rich debris, large quantities of some of the universe’s heaviest elements were forged, including hundreds of Earth masses of gold and platinum.

Image Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab