Rapid neutron capture (the r-process)

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The mechanism that builds roughly half the elements heavier than iron, including gold, platinum, thorium and uranium. It requires a neutron flux so intense that a nucleus captures neutrons faster than it can beta-decay, driving matter far to the neutron-rich side of stability before it decays back toward it. The conditions are extreme enough that the astrophysical site was disputed for decades: core-collapse supernovae were the traditional candidate, and neutron-star mergers the theoretical alternative. The 2017 detection of a kilonova following the neutron-star merger GW170817 provided the first direct evidence of r-process material being made in a merger, with ejecta estimates on the order of a few hundredths of a solar mass. Whether mergers alone can account for the Galactic inventory, and whether the very heaviest species were observed at all, remain open. Not a place.

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