All around us are elements forged in stars, from the nickel and copper in coins to the gold and silver in jewelry. Scientists have a good understanding of how these elements form: In many cases, a ...

Models for how heavy elements are produced within stars have become more accurate thanks to measurements by RIKEN nuclear physicists of the probabilities that 20 neutron-rich nuclei will shed neutrons ...

A: Immediately (much less than a second) after the Big Bang, the universe was both too hot and too dense for elements to form. Hydrogen didn’t appear until the universe had spread out — and ...

How heavy can an element be? An international team of researchers has found that ancient stars were capable of producing elements with atomic masses greater than 260, heavier than any element on the ...

For the first time, a freshly made heavy element, strontium, has been detected in space, in the aftermath of a merger of two neutron stars. The detection confirms that the heavier elements in the ...