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Astronomers have tried to determine the cosmic origins of the heaviest elements such as gold for decades. Now new research work based on a signal that has been uncovered in the Archive Space Mission data can indicate a potential reference: magnetic or highly magnicified neutron stars.
Scientists believe that lighter elements such as hydrogen and helium and even a small amount of lithium probably exist early after the big bang created the universe 13.8 billion years ago.
Then exploding stars released heavier elements such as Iron, which were built into newborns and planets. But the distribution of gold that is heavier than iron, in the entire universe astrophysician has aroused a mystery.
“It is a fairly fundamental question in relation to the origin of the complex matter in the universe,” said Anirudh Patel, the main author of the study, which was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters on Tuesday, and a doctoral student at Columbia University in New York City. “It is a funny puzzle that was actually not solved.”
Previously, the cosmic production of gold was only associated with neutron star collisions.
Astronomers observed a collision between two neutron stars in 2017. The catastrophic conflict freely freed waves in space -time, which are referred to as gravitational waves, as well as light from a gamma ray outbreak. The collision event, known as Kilonova, also created heavy elements such as gold, platinum and lead. Kilonovas were compared with golden “factories” in space.
It is believed that most of the fusions of neutron stars only occurred in the last several billion years, said Eric Burns, assistant professor and astrophysicist at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
20 years of data from NASA and the European Space Agency, which have not yet been deciphered, indicate that torches of Magnetars, which were formed much earlier in childhood, could have delivered another option for the creation of gold, said Burns.
Dive of stars
Neutron stars are the remains of the seeds made of exploded stars, and they are so dense that 1 teaspoon of the star material would weigh 1 billion tons on earth. Magnetars are an extremely bright type of neutron star with an incredibly strong magnetic field.
Astronomers are still trying to find out exactly how Magnetars form, but they theorize that the first magnetars probably appeared shortly after the first stars within about 200 million years after the start of the universe or about 13.6 billion years, Burns said.
Occasionally, Magnetars unleash a bonanza of radiation due to “star quakes”.
Earthquakes occur on earth because the melted core of the earth causes movement in the crust of the planet, and if there is sufficient stress, this leads to a fleeting movement or the floor under its feet. Star quakes are similar, said Burns.
“Neutronstars have a crust and a superfluid core,” said Burns in an e -mail. “The movement under the surface builds up the tension on the surface, which can ultimately cause a star bundle. On the magnetars, these star quakes generate very short X -ray storms. Just like on Earth, they have (have) times when a certain star is particularly active, and creates hundreds or thousands of mistakes in a few weeks. And in a while there is a particularly strong quake.”
The researchers found evidence that a magnetic was triggered during a huge flicker material, but they had no physical explanation for the expectoration of the star mass, said Patel.
It is likely that the torches at high speeds are heated and exhausted, as can be seen in the recent examinations of several co authors of the new study, including Patel’s advisor Brian Metzger, professor of physics at Columbia University and senior research scientist at Flatiron Institute in New York City.
“They put the hypothesis that the physical conditions of this explosive mass emissions for the production of heavy elements were promising,” said Patel.
The concept of this artist shows a Magnetar exemption material into space. The magnetic field lines shown in green influence the movement of charged material around the magnetar. – NASA/JPL-CALTECH
Track a star signal
The research team was excited to see whether there could be a connection between the radiation from Magnetar torches and the formation of heavy elements. The scientists searched for evidence of visible and ultraviolet light in wavelengths. But Burns wondered whether the torch could also lead to a comprehensible gamma ray.
He looked at gamma beam data from the last observed giant Magnetar flare, which was released in December 2004 and was captured by the now retired integral or the international gamma rays of Astrophysics Laboratory. Astronomers had found and characterized the signal, but did not know how to interpret it at the time, said Burns.
The prediction of the model proposed by Metzger’s previous research voted the signal from the 2004 data. The gamma rays resembled how the team suggested the creation and distribution of heavy elements, as would look in a huge Magnetar torch.
The data from Rhessi in retirement at NASA or the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Specroscopic Imager and the Wind Satellite also supported the results of the team. Long -term financed research results enabled the discovery, said Burns.
“When no model was built up and made our predictions in December 2024, none of us knew that the signal was already in the data. And none of us could have imagined that our theoretical models would fit the data so well. It was an exciting holiday season for all of us,” said Patel. “It is very cool to think about how some of the things in my phone or in my laptop in this extreme explosion (about) the course of the history of our galaxy were fake.”
Dr. Eleonora Troja, Associate Professor at the University of Rome, who directed the discovery of X-rays by the Neutronenstern collision in 2017, said that the evidence for the creation of severe elements from the magnetar event was “in no way comparable to the evidence that were collected in 2017”. Troy was not involved in the new study.
“The production of gold from this magnetar is a possible explanation for the gamma ray glow, which, among other things, honestly discusses as a paper,” said Troy.
Troja added that Magnetars are “very messy objects”. In view of the fact that the creation of gold can be a difficult process that requires certain conditions, it is possible that magnetars can add too much of the wrong ingredients such as an electron surplus, which leads to light metals such as zirconium or silver and not gold or uranium.
“So I would not go so far to say that a new gold source was discovered,” said Troy. “Rather, an alternative path is proposed for its production.”
The researchers believe that magnetic huge torches could be responsible for up to 10% of the elements that are heavier than iron in the milky galaxy, but a future mission could provide a more precise estimate, said Patel.
The COMPON spectrometer and image mission by NASA or COSI, which is expected to start in 2027, could follow the results of the study. The wide field-gamma ray telescope is designed in such a way that they observe huge magnetar torches and identify elements generated in them. The telescope could help astronomers look for other potential sources of heavy elements in the entire universe, said Patel.
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