Latest news with #BrianMetzger
Economic Times
04-05-2025
- Science
- Economic Times
Have scientists just found a new cosmic source of gold? How 'starquakes' might forge the glittering metal
Scientists may have found a cosmic clue to gold's origins—giant flares from magnetars, ultra-magnetic neutron stars, could forge heavy elements like gold. For decades, astronomers have puzzled over one of the universe's most glittering mysteries: where does gold come from? While the origins of elements like hydrogen and helium trace back to the Big Bang, and heavier elements like iron are born in the explosive deaths of stars, gold—being far heavier—has long been an enigma. Until now, the only known factories of this precious metal were the spectacular collisions of neutron stars, the ultra-dense remnants of supernovae. But according to a report from CNN , a new study has cracked open a cosmic cold case with a dramatic revelation: gold might also be born from the flares of magnetars—supercharged neutron stars with magnetic fields a quadrillion times stronger than Earth's. If true, the implications don't just shake up our understanding of cosmic chemistry—they rewrite it. The potential breakthrough comes from a deeper look at data collected nearly 20 years ago. Researchers analyzing signals from NASA and ESA space telescopes discovered a gamma-ray burst from 2004 that aligns remarkably well with theoretical models of a magnetar explosion. These models suggest that under extreme conditions, when a magnetar undergoes a 'starquake'—akin to an earthquake but on a star's crust—it can eject crust material at unimaginable speeds. This material, they argue, could contain the seeds of gold and other heavy elements. 'We think the starquakes on magnetars produce short, intense bursts of X-rays,' said Eric Burns, a coauthor of the study and astrophysicist at Louisiana State University. 'Sometimes, one of these flares becomes so massive, it hurls part of the star's surface into space.' And that, scientists now believe, might just be enough to spark the creation of gold. — lsuscience (@lsuscience) The 2004 event, captured by the INTEGRAL mission and long forgotten, suddenly re-emerged as a golden lead. Matching this ancient gamma-ray signature with predictions from Columbia University's Brian Metzger and his team, the researchers found eerie similarities—evidence that the flare may have, in fact, carried the fingerprint of heavy element production. Lead author Anirudh Patel, a PhD student at Columbia, likened the discovery to a surprise holiday gift. 'When we built our models in December 2024, we didn't realize the signal had already been hiding in plain sight,' he said. 'It's incredible to think that gold used in everyday electronics could have been forged in such a violent, ancient blast.' While the excitement is palpable, not all astrophysicists are ready to hail magnetars as gold mines. Dr. Eleonora Troja, who helped confirm the gold-making potential of neutron star collisions in 2017, urged caution. 'Magnetars are chaotic, messy systems,' she said. 'They may add too many electrons, which could lead to lighter metals like silver or zirconium, rather than gold.' She agrees that the flare presents a fascinating possibility but warns it's not yet definitive proof. The creation of gold, she noted, requires a very specific recipe—and magnetars might not always have the right ingredients. To truly determine if magnetars are responsible for scattering stardust treasures across the galaxy, scientists will need more than archival data. That's where NASA's upcoming Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI), set to launch in 2027, comes in. Designed to detect gamma rays from cosmic phenomena, COSI could track future magnetar flares in real time and search for the chemical fingerprints of heavy elements. Until then, the mystery remains tantalizing. Are these fiery, magnetic titans quietly churning out gold as they quake and flare across the universe? Or is this just one of many illusions in the great cosmic forge? Whatever the answer, one thing is clear: our search for celestial gold is far from over—and the universe may be hiding its treasure in the most explosive places. Would you like a headline banner or visual element to go with this piece for web?
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Magnetar 'Starquakes' Could Forge Gold in Space, Scientists Discover
Scientists have long been trying to determine how elements heavier than iron, including gold and platinum, were first created and scattered through the Universe, and new research may give us another part of the answer: magnetars. Rare, giant flares erupting from these highly magnetized neutron stars could contribute to the production of the heavy elements, based on a fresh analysis of a magnetar burst captured in 2004. The full story of that burst wasn't understood at the time. The latest work, from an international team of scientists, suggests the flash of gamma ray light captured back then originated from heavy elements being shot out into space. 'Starquakes' can fracture the magnetar's crust, forging heavier elements in the process, the team says. Giant flares can follow, distributing the newly minted elements into the cosmos. Although the burst only lasted a few seconds, it would have produced around a third of Earth's mass in heavy metals, the researchers estimate. This means we potentially have a solution for two mysteries in a single new study. "It's answering one of the questions of the century and solving a mystery using archival data that had been nearly forgotten," says astrophysicist Eric Burns, from Louisiana State University. Ultra-dense neutron stars are formed as massive stars run out of fuel in their core, imploding in on themselves. Some of these turn into magnetars, with extraordinarily powerful magnetic fields around a trillion times more powerful than Earth's. There's another source of heavy elements that we already know about: neutron star mergers. However, they're not thought to be enough to account for all the gold, platinum, and other metals we have – these heavy elements appear too early in the Universe's history, before these collisions would have started occurring. That led the team to magnetar flares. A 2024 study, from some of the same researchers, outlined how these intense bursts might be enough to trigger one major process required for heavy elements to form, called the r-process. This study predicted that heavy elements being forged in this way should produce detectable gamma ray bursts. The researchers explored existing observations that could fit the bill, and this led them to the unexplained 2004 burst. "The event had kind of been forgotten over the years, but we very quickly realized that our model was a perfect fit for it," says astrophysicist Brian Metzger, from Columbia University in New York. There's a lot more to come. NASA is currently working on a wide-field gamma ray telescope, the Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI), which should be able to back up the findings of this research. In the meantime, the search for more sources of heavy elements continues. "It's pretty incredible to think that some of the heavy elements all around us, like the precious metals in our phones and computers, are produced in these crazy extreme environments," says astrophysicist Anirudh Patel, from Columbia University. The research has been published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Depictions of Milky Way's River of Stars Found in Ancient Egyptian Art Dawn's Second Look Reveals Vesta Could Be Part of a Lost World Huge, Invisible Cloud Discovered Just 300 Light-Years From The Solar System
India Today
30-04-2025
- Science
- India Today
Where did Earth get its gold from? The answer was hiding in an alien signal
Gold prices in India are skyrocketing and the metal continues to shine amid all the external pressure, but have you ever wondered where this gold came from?Astronomers have long believed that it all originated in the fringes of the universe and was transported to Earth via meteor bombardments. After the Earth's core formed, heavy metals like gold sank to the centre. The gold found in Earth's crust today was likely delivered later by meteorites rich in previously unknown birthplace of some of the universe's rarest elements, including gold, has been discovered. It all came from a giant flare unleashed by a supermagnetised star. In an ejection that would have caused its rotation to slow, a magnetar is depicted losing material into space in this artist's concept. (Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech) Astronomers have calculated that such flares could be responsible for forging up to 10 per cent of our galaxy's gold, platinum and other heavy of the elements we know and love today weren't always around. Hydrogen, helium and a dash of lithium were formed in the Big Bang, but almost everything else has been manufactured by stars in their lives, or during their violent pretty incredible to think that some of the heavy elements all around us, like the precious metals in our phones and computers, are produced in these crazy extreme environments,' says Anirudh Patel, lead author of the new new discovery was thanks to a rare signal that was picked up by a telescope on Earth 20 years ago in 2004. This signal came from a magnetar — a type of star wrapped in magnetic fields trillions of times as strong as the Earth's — that had unleashed the giant flare. A single flare from a supermagnetized star called a magnetar can produce the mass equivalent of 27 moons' worth of the universe's heaviest atoms such as gold. (Photo: Gettty) The powerful blast of radiation only lasted a few seconds, but it released more energy than our sun does in 1 million unexplained smaller signal marked the rare birth of heavy elements such as gold and platinum. In addition to confirming another source of these elements, the astronomers estimated that the 2004 flare alone produced the equivalent of a third of the Earth's mass in heavy details have been published in a paper in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.'This is really just the second time we've ever directly seen proof of where these elements form. It's a substantial leap in our understanding of heavy elements production,' study co-author Brian Metzger said.
Time of India
30-04-2025
- Science
- Time of India
Where does gold come from? NASA has the answer
The Akshaya Tritiya , an annual Jain and Hindu spring festival, is almost here, and what's a more fitting occasion than this to dig deep about gold? Where did your gold earrings come from? Of course, from the store! But, before that? Where were they sourced from? Yes, gold mines. But how did it emerge there? How did they form on Earth? Well, NASA's data may have some clues to offer. What if we tell you that some of the gold in your jewellery or smartphone (yes, your phone has gold in it) might have been made in a magnetar explosion billions of years ago! Sounds wild, but it's possible. Where does gold come from ? We know that hydrogen, helium, and a scant amount of lithium have existed in the universe since the Big Bang. The heavier metals were formed later, as the stars fused lighter elements into heavier ones (up to iron) in their cores. However, how the first elements heavier than iron, such as gold, get created and distributed throughout the universe remained a mystery. A new study by researchers at the Flatiron Institute's Center for Computational Astrophysics in New York suggests some cosmic connection! Using 20-year-old archival data from NASA and European Space Agency telescopes, researchers have found evidence that powerful flares from magnetars could account for up to 10% of elements heavier than iron, including gold. The findings are published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters . The new study found that a single giant flare from a magnetar can produce the mass equivalent of 27 moons' worth of heavy elements, including gold, platinum, and other heavy elements. These elements, which include uranium and strontium, are produced in a set of nuclear reactions known as the rapid neutron-capture process, or r-process. 'This is really just the second time we've ever directly seen proof of where these elements form (the first being neutron star mergers) study co-author Brian Metzger, a senior research scientist at the CCA and a professor at Columbia University, said in a statement. 'It's a substantial leap in our understanding of heavy elements production.' The researchers have unraveled a puzzle dating back to December 2004, when a space telescope detected a bright burst of light from a magnetar. The initial giant flare was so intense that it released more energy in a few seconds than the sun does in a million years. Though the astronomers quickly identified the flare's origin, a smaller signal that appeared 10 minutes later remained unexplained until now. In 2024, Metzger and colleagues calculated that the giant flares could eject material from a magnetar's crust into space, where r-process elements could form. 'It's pretty incredible to think that some of the heavy elements all around us, like the precious metals in our phones and computers, are produced in these crazy extreme environments,' Anirudh Patel, a doctoral candidate at Columbia University and lead author on the new study, said. They found that giant flares from magnetars create unstable, heavy radioactive elements, which then break down into stable ones like gold. As this decay, they emit a glow of light and form new elements. In 2024, the group also calculated that this glow would appear as a burst of gamma rays, a form of highly energized light. When they shared this with gamma-ray astronomers, they discovered that a similar unexplained signal had been seen decades ago. As scientists studying magnetars and those studying element formation rarely work together, no one had previously suggested that the signal might be caused by new element creation. 'The event had kind of been forgotten over the years. But we very quickly realized that our model was a perfect fit for it,' Metzger says. 'The interesting thing about these giant flares is that they can occur really early in galactic history. Magnetar giant flares could be the solution to a problem we've had where there are more heavy elements seen in young galaxies than could be created from neutron star collisions alone,' Patel adds. 100 Days Of Trump: Tariff Tyranny, Zelensky Bashing, Iran Nuclear Threat | 3 Shocking Speeches The researchers are hoping to observe more such flares to understand the contribution of magnetars. NASA's Compton Spectrometer and Imager is expected to launch in 2027, and it could help capture these signals. 'Once a gamma-ray burst is detected, you have to point an ultraviolet telescope at the source within 10 to 15 minutes to see the signal's peak and confirm r-process elements are made there. It'll be a fun chase,' Metzger says. The next time you wear your gold jewellery, thank the universe!
