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Rain of Gold from Galaxy NGC 4993 confirms prediction by theoretical researchers

The great news story of week 42 gave a lot of quotes in the media all over the World. Gravitational waves observed by LIGO-Virgo were almost immediately followed up by observations with astronomical instruments almost in the full electromagnetic range on 17 August 2017 from the galaxy NGC 4993. The source, named a kilonova was caused by a merger of two neutron stars. Lots of headlines stressed the angle that such a merger produces immense amounts of gold and platinum!

[Translate to English:] Illustration af dannelsen af en kilonova ved sammenstør imellem to neutronstjerner. Kilde: ESO

A fine explanation of the subject of supernovae producing not enough of very heavy elements to explain the observed abundance can be found here.

It is a press release from GSI of 16.10.2017

The periodic system of the elements with colour coded origins. credit: ESA/NASA

The ESO press release of the kilonova observations is here in English