Astro Alchemy: Where Rare Elements Come From

How do you make gold? Simply bombard a nucleus with countless neutrons before it can decay.

Special Thanks to Prof. Rob Jeffries from the Keele Astrophysics Group for his expertise in this area.

Further reading:

r-process nucleosynthesis and kilonovae from hypermassive neutron star post-merger remnants - doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac3128

The Complete Explanation of the Nuclear Magic Numbers - www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/magicnumbers2.htm

JWST detection of heavy neutron capture elements in a compact object merger - doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2307.02098