Before "he went to Jared," two neutron stars collided. That’s what scientists learned from studying the debris fallout after a cosmic explosion called a kilonova — 1,000 times brighter than a standard nova — which appeared, and was witnessed by astronomers, in earthly skies Aug. 17.
For decades, astronomers debated the origins of the heaviest elements, which includes precious metals, rare Earth elements and basically everything on the bottom rungs of the periodic table, from platinum to plutonium.
“It’s a very violent process,” says Columbia University astronomer Brian Metzger, whose team predicted neutron star mergers would create a kilonova. “The two neutron stars are moving almost at the speed of light around each other and then they slam into each other.”
