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 - https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac3128 The Complete Explanation of the Nuclear Magic Numbers - https://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/magicnumbers2.htm JWST detection of heavy neutron capture elements in a compact object merger - https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2307.02098