A flash of high-energy radiation that rippled through space in December 2004 may have quietly rewritten part of the story for how the universe forges its heaviest elements — including gold, platinum ...

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 ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A rupture in the crust of a ...

A brilliant flash from deep space once baffled scientists. But now, that mystery has been solved—and it reshapes what we know about the universe’s heaviest elements. Back in December 2004, a massive ...

Giant flares blasted out of supermagnetized stars called "magnetars" could forge planets' worth of gold and other heavy elements such as platinum and uranium. This is the conclusion of an ...

You might owe that gold necklace around your neck to a moody, long-dead star from the universe’s ancient past. According to a new study, magnetars—a rare type of neutron star—may have forged some of ...

What can magnetized stars, commonly called magnetars, teach astronomers about the distribution of heavy elements throughout the universe? This is what a recent study published in The Astrophysical ...

In an ejection that would have caused its rotation to slow, a magnetar is depicted losing material into space in this artist’s concept. The magnetar’s strong, twisted magnetic field lines (shown in ...

For years, astronomers puzzled over the mystery of where the heaviest elements in the universe—like gold, uranium, and platinum—come from. Scientists understood that these elements had to form under ...

The researchers believe that magnetar giant flares could be responsible for up to 10% of elements heavier than iron in the Milky Way galaxy, but a future mission could provide a more precise estimate, ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Magnetar flares, colossal cosmic explosions, may be directly responsible for the creation and distribution of heavy elements across the universe, suggests a new study. For decades, ...