by Scientists have discovered the first demonstration of nuclear fission among stars. The discovery supports the idea that when neutron stars collide, they create “superheavy” elements — heavier than the heaviest elements on the periodic table — which then break down through nuclear fission with birth elements like gold in your jewelry.
Nuclear fission is essentially the same nuclear fusion. While nuclear fusion refers to the breaking of lighter elements to create heavier elements, nuclear fission is a process that sees the release of energy when heavy elements split apart to create lighter elements. Nuclear fission is also well known. It is actually the basis of nuclear power plants generating energy here on World — however, he did not appear among the stars before this.
“People thought that fission was happening in the cosmos, but so far, no one has been able to prove it,” Matthew Mumpower, co-author of the study and a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, said in a statement.
The team of researchers led by North Carolina State University scientist Ian Roederer searched for data on a wide range of elements in stars to find the first evidence that nuclear fission could act in this way when mergers neutron stars together. These results could help solve the mystery of the place the universein which come heavy elements.
Related: What happens when neutron stars collide? Astronomers may finally know
Scientists know that nuclear fusion is not only the main source of energy for stars, but also the force that creates different elements, the “heaviest” in iron.
The picture of so-called nucleosynthesis of heavier elements like gold and uranium, however, is a bit more mysterious. Scientists suspect that these precious rare heavy elements are created when two dead stars are extremely close – neutron stars — collide and merge, creating an environment violent enough to create elements that cannot be created even in the most turbulent hearts of stars.
The evidence of nuclear fission that Mumpower and team discovered comes in the form of a correlation between “light precision metals,” like silver, and “rare-earth nuclei,” like europium, showing up in some stars. When one of these groups of elements goes up, the corresponding elements in the other group also increase, the scientists observed.
The team’s research also shows that there are elements with atomic masses — counting protons and neutron in an atomic nucleus — there may be more than 260 around a neutron star, even if this life is short. This is much heavier than many of the elements at the “heavy end” of the periodic table.
“The only plausible way that this can occur among different stars is if there is a consistent process operating during the formation of the heavy elements,” Mumpower said. “This is extremely deep and is the first evidence of fission operating in the cosmos, confirming a theory we proposed several years ago.”
“As we get more observations, the cosmos is saying, ‘hey, there’s a signature here, and it can only come from fission’.”
Neutron stars and nuclear fission
Neutron stars are formed when massive stars reach the end of their supplies of fuel necessary for intrinsic nuclear fusion processes, meaning the energy that is supporting them against the inward pressure. gravity shall cease. As the outer layers of dying stars are blown away, the stellar cores with masses of one to two times their the sun fall into a width of about 12 miles (20 kilometers).
This heartbreak happens so quickly electrons and protons are forced together, creating a sea of neutrons so dense that a tablespoon of this neutron star “stuff” would weigh more than 1 billion tons if brought to Earth.
When these extreme stars are in a binary pair, they spiral around each other. As they spiral around each other, they lose angular momentum because they emit an intangible ripple in space-time known as gravitational waves. This is because neutron stars collide, merge and, not surprisingly given their extreme and exotic nature, create a very violent environment.
This final neutron star merger releases a wealth of free neutrons, which are particles normally bound up with protons in atomic nuclei. This can allow other atomic nuclei in these environments to quickly acquire these free neutrons – a process known as fast neutron capture or the “e-process.” This allows the atomic nuclei to grow heavier, creating heavier elements that are unstable. These heavier elements can then be fissioned to split into lighter and more stable elements such as gold.
In 2020, Mumpower predicted how the “fission fragments” of nuclei created by the e-process would be distributed. Next, Mumpower collaborator and TRIUMF scientist Nicole Vassh calculated how the e-process would enable the co-production of light precision metals such as ruthenium, rhodium, palladium and silver — as well as rare earth nuclei, such as europium, gadolinium, dysprosium. and holmium.
This prediction can be tested not only by looking at neutron star mergers but also by looking at the abundances of elements in stars enriched by material created by the e-process.
— Sometimes the world’s most extreme stars are ‘mad’ — we may now know why
— The James Webb Space Telescope shows a violent collision between neutron stars
— Mysterious bursts of radiation may originate from our universe’s most extreme stars
This new research looked at 42 stars and found the exact correlation predicted by Vassh, showing a clear signature of fission and decay of heavier elements than found on the periodic table, further confirming that they neutron star collisions of sites containing elements heavier than. wrought iron.
“The correlation is very strong in e-process improvement stars where we have enough data time nature produces the atom out of silver, it is also producing rare earth nuclei in proportion. The composition of these elemental groups is at a green stage,” Mumpower concluded.
The team’s research was published in the December 6 issue of the journal Science.
