Explosive nucleosynthesis is a research area in nuclear astrophysics that investigates the production of chemical elements and isotopes in environments where rapid energy release drives nonequilibrium nuclear reactions, typically associated with stellar explosions such as core-collapse and thermonuclear supernovae, novae, and neutron star mergers. It focuses on reaction networks under extreme temperatures, densities, and dynamic timescales, including rapid neutron capture (r-process), rapid proton capture (rp-process), and explosive silicon and oxygen burning. The field integrates nuclear reaction cross sections, equation-of-state physics, hydrodynamic simulations, and observational abundance patterns to constrain explosion mechanisms and the origin of heavy elements in the universe.
In two separate papers published in Physical Review Letters, researchers investigated the nuclear reactions that take place inside supernovae and X-ray bursts—two of the universe's most powerful explosions. Together, the ...
Astronomy
Aug 17, 2026
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The building blocks of rocky planets may have begun forming just 100 million years after the Big Bang—long before the first galaxies even existed—according to new research from the University of Portsmouth.
Planetary Sciences
Aug 12, 2026
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Where do gold, platinum and uranium come from? This question has fascinated astrophysicists and nuclear physicists for decades. A research team from Technische Universität Darmstadt has now taken an important step toward ...
General Physics
Jul 30, 2026
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When neutron stars merge, they create a powerful explosion called a kilonova that flings out neutron-rich material, some of which decays into heavy elements through a process called the r-process. Recent observations of kilonovae ...
Neutrinos: They have no electric charge, pass through matter like a ghost and are so light they were initially thought to have zero mass. These are just some of the traits that make them so difficult to detect. Research on ...
Astronomy
Jul 3, 2026
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Long-duration gamma-ray bursts are some of the most energetic events in the universe, releasing more energy in just a few seconds than the sun emits in 10 billion years. Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists, having discovered ...
Astronomy
Jun 18, 2026
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Debris is still raining down on Earth more than 100 million years after the giant cosmic explosion that created it. A study published this week in Nature Astronomy by an international team reached this conclusion using measurements ...
Astrobiology
Jun 15, 2026
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301
Once charted as a 'guest star' in ancient China, dreaded as a harbinger of ill omens in medieval Europe, and preserved in the narratives and artworks of Indigenous cultures, these cosmic spectacles are now known as core-collapse ...
Astronomy
Jun 12, 2026
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Astronomers have discovered a huge reservoir of cold molecular gas, the direct fuel for star formation, in REBELS-25, a massive, star-forming galaxy. The team, led from Leiden University, focused on REBELS-25, seen when the ...
Astronomy
Jun 11, 2026
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Using a novel simulation model based on machine learning, an international research team at GSI/FAIR has succeeded in gaining a deeper understanding of element formation in stellar events such as neutron star mergers. For ...
Astronomy
Jun 8, 2026
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