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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?
Time of India
04-05-2025
- Science
- Time of India
Have scientists just found a new cosmic source of gold? How 'starquakes' might forge the glittering metal
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. #Pahalgam Terrorist Attack India much better equipped to target cross-border terror since Balakot India conducts maiden flight-trials of stratospheric airship platform Pakistan shuts ports for Indian ships after New Delhi bans imports from Islamabad 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. When Stars Quake Like Earth 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 . Play Video Pause Skip Backward Skip Forward Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration 0:00 Loaded : 0% 0:00 Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 1x Playback Rate Chapters Chapters Descriptions descriptions off , selected Captions captions settings , opens captions settings dialog captions off , selected Audio Track default , selected Picture-in-Picture Fullscreen This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Text Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Caption Area Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Drop shadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. '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) You Might Also Like: People made money in gold, stocks and real estate. Then, why you could not? Akshat Shrivastava has an answer Cosmic Archaeology in Gamma Rays 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.' Not Everyone's Convinced—Yet 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. You Might Also Like: Not discounts. How Dubai gold jewellers are trying to attract Indian shoppers as prices surge 30% in just 4 months Eyes on 2027: A Telescope with a Golden Mission 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
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
'It's answering one of the questions of the century': Scientists may finally know where the oldest gold in the universe came from
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Scientists may have finally worked out where gold came from in the early universe. In a new study, researchers revealed that powerful flares originating from neutron stars with a strong magnetic field, called "magnetars," may have started forging gold not long after the Big Bang — significantly earlier than previously thought possible. The researchers described their findings in a study published Tuesday (April 29) in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Scientists have long been puzzled by the origins of the universe's vast amounts of gold. Researchers already knew that mergers of collapsed stars and black holes discharge heavy metals, but in 2017, for the first time ever, astronomers observed the merger of two superdense stellar corpses known as neutron stars. The cataclysmic collision, which happened 130 million light-years away, emitted a flash of light that contained signatures of heavy metals, including platinum and staggering amounts of gold. But while the 2017 event accounted for some of the universe's gold abundance, it couldn't explain how gold and heavy metals formed in the universe's early days, because not enough time had passed for neutron star mergers to occur. Now, scientists think they can finally explain how gold and other heavy elements were first created and distributed in space. "It's answering one of the questions of the century," study co-author Eric Burns, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Louisiana State University, said in a NASA statement. Related: Hubble watches neutron stars collide and explode to create black hole and 'birth atoms' Magnetars have existed since the early days of the universe, and the study's authors estimate that these structures may have contributed up to 10% of all elements heavier than iron in the Milky Way, according to the statement. The researchers used 20-year-old data from NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) telescopes to find the universe's hidden source of gold and heavy metals. They narrowed their search to magnetars based on the results of a 2024 study, which found that magnetar giant flares — bursts of radiation released during "starquakes" — can eject material, including heavy metals, from the crust of neutron stars and into space. The last magnetar giant flare observed from Earth was in 2004. Scientists at the time noticed a small gamma ray signal from the flare, "but nobody had any conception of what it could be," Burns said. It turns out, this small signal mirrors signals that scientists would expect to see if a magnetar created and threw out heavy metals in a giant flare. Magnetar giant flares produce an enormous amount of high-energy radiation, which could be the key to forging gold and other elements heavier than iron, according to the researchers. Specifically, the authors of the new study think that the extremely high density of neutrons in a giant flare could transform light atomic nuclei into much heavier ones, triggering multiple nuclear decay reactions in a single atom at once. Atoms carry protons and neutrons, which determine an element's identity and mass, respectively. Hydrogen is the simplest atom on the periodic table, because it has only one proton. Helium, the second-simplest element, has two protons; lithium has three, and so on. Under certain conditions, atoms can absorb an extra neutron, which increases the mass of the atom, destabilizing it and sparking a nuclear decay reaction that converts this neutron into a proton. When that happens, the atom that absorbed the neutron has an extra proton, which changes its identity and moves it up the periodic table. Hydrogen becomes helium, helium becomes lithium, and so forth. RELATED STORIES —Astronomers discover giant 'bridge' in space that could finally solve a violent galactic mystery —Scientists spot a 'dark nebula' being torn apart by rowdy infant stars — offering clues about our own solar system's past —There's liquid on Titan, Saturn's largest moon. But something's missing and scientists are confused Magnetic giant flares host a turbocharged version of this process, because the huge density of neutrons can cause atoms to absorb several of them at once, according to the researchers. Thus, a relatively light atom may suddenly transform into a much heavier one, leading to the rapid formation of heavy metals, including gold. "It [is] very cool to think about how some of the stuff in my phone or my laptop was forged in this extreme explosion [over] the course of our galaxy's history," study lead author Anirudh Patel, a doctoral student in astrophysics at Columbia University in New York, said in the statement. The next step for the researchers is to look for further clues in older magnetar giant flare data. NASA's Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI) mission will also follow up on the results when it is launched, which is expected in 2027. COSI is a wide-field gamma ray telescope that will study energetic phenomena in the cosmos, including magnetar giant flares.
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Business Standard
30-04-2025
- Science
- Business Standard
Nasa uncovers clues about gold's cosmic origin: All you need to know
The origin of metal heavier than iron, such as gold, has always been a mystery. But not anymore. Nasa finally has an answer to how the previous metal has been created and distributed throughout the universe. A new study led by Columbia University doctoral student Anirudh Patel and published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters suggests that magnetars (highly magnetised neutron stars) could have helped forge and spread elements heavier than iron, like gold, across the universe. The research also suggests that the magnetar flares may have played a far bigger role than expected. Patel's team uses 20-year-old data Patel and his team used 20-year-old data from ESA and Nasa telescopes to help their study, which found that huge magnetar flares could account for up to 10% of the galaxy's heavy elements. Magnetars were formed early, and they have created some of the universe's first gold. Eric Burns from Louisiana State University, who co-authored the study, said it was like solving a century-old riddle using forgotten observations. 'It's answering one of the questions of the century and solving a mystery using archival data that had been nearly forgotten,' said Eric Burns. According to the study, these flares came from magnetars. A magnetar is a type of neutron star with an extremely strong magnetic field. One teaspoon of neutron star material could weigh billions of tonnes on Earth. On rare occasions, the magnetars release huge amounts of high-energy radiation when they undergo 'starquakes'. Starquakes are powerful bursts of radiation called magnetar giant flares, which can even affect the atmosphere of Earth. As of now, only three magnetar giant flares have been observed in the Milky Way and the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud and seven outside. Searching for clues from the past When atoms gather too many neutrons, they can decay and gain protons. It pushes them up the periodic table and this process can transform lighter elements into heavier ones like gold, mercury, or even uranium. It needs a neutron-rich setting, which is found during magnetar flares. In 2017, scientists observed the collision of two neutron stars producing heavy elements. However, such collisions happen too late to explain early gold. Recent work by co-authors Jakub Cehula, Todd Thompson and Metzger suggested that magnetar flares might instead be the missing source. Initially, Metzger's team thinks that the visible and ultraviolet light is the clue, but then Burns asks if gamma rays might leave a clearer trail. He then revisited data from the 2004 magnetar flare and discovered a mysterious gamma-ray signal recorded by ESA's now-retired INTEGRAL satellite. The signal matches the prediction by the team. While recalling his excitement, Patel said, 'I wasn't thinking about anything else for the next week." Close eye on future flares The discovery has opened a new door in astrophysics. NASA's upcoming COSI mission, set to launch in 2027, could confirm these results. This wide-field gamma-ray telescope will look closely at cosmic explosions like magnetar flares, potentially identifying specific elements created during the chaos. The latest discovery has been a groundbreaking one, opening a new door in astrophysics. Nasa's future mission, scheduled to take place in 2027, could confirm these results. This wide-field gamma-ray telescope will closely observe cosmic events such as magnetar flares, which are expected to identify specific elements created during the chaos. Reflecting on the journey from cosmic explosions to modern technology, Patel said, 'It's very cool to think about how some of the stuff in my phone or my laptop was forged in this extreme explosion.'
