Friday, September 16, 2011

APOD 1.3 On the Origin of Gold

While reading this article I found out that no one knows for sure where gold originated from. Some astronomers have recently suggested that neutron-heavy metals like gold are easily made in rare neutro-rich explosions. Since many other types of precious metals are thought to have come from explosions, it is possible that gold is suvenir from an earlier explosion in our galaxy.
See Explanation.  Clicking on the picture will download
the highest resolution version available.

I learned that a supernova explosion is one of the most powerful of its kind. This explosion occurs if the star is very large and it collapses and releases a lot of energy. After the star collapses the result is usually a rapidly moving neutron star that is observed many years later.
animation of supernova explosion

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