Solving a heavy-duty mystery | MSUToday | Michigan State University
http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2016/solving-a-heavy-duty-mystery/
To determine how the universe’s heavy elements – gold, silver and many others – came about,
a team of international researchers is studying both the largest and smallest things known to us – stars and atoms.
The team, led by scientists from Michigan State University, is providing critical data to computer models of what
are known as stellar events – supernovas and neutron stars mergers, to be exact.
By matching the computer models with real observations of these cataclysmic events, it could help answer one of
astronomy’s most puzzling questions.
A supernova is a star that, in its old age, collapses and then catastrophically explodes under its own weight;
a neutron-star merger occurs when two of these small yet incredibly massive stars come together and spew out huge
amounts of stellar debris.
By conducting experiments in MSU’s National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, the researchers were able to come
a bit closer to determining what actually goes on during these stellar events, an important step in determining how
heavy elements were formed.