Science Alert
26 October 2023
By MICHELLE STARR
The kilonova explosion that resulted when two neutron stars slammed into each other a billion light-years away turned out to be factory for rare heavy elements.
It’s the first time the James Webb Space Telescope has probed such an event; and, in the aftermath of a colossal gamma-ray burst that emerged on 7 March 2023, the telescope’s data revealed evidence of tellurium – a rare metal too heavy to be forged in the hearts of stars by the process of fusion.