Creating gold: Physicists show how the precious metal is created

[Redaktion]

Alchemists puzzled over it for centuries, physicists have now been able to calculate it precisely. A comprehensive model shows how gold and other precious, rare and heavy metals are formed. The only ingredients: Just two neutron stars.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Creating-gold-Physicists-show-how-the-precious-metal-is-created.787120.0.html

[Anonymousgg]

Moreover, not only one neutron star is needed. Two of them have to find each other and orbit each other.

This is probably more common than you might expect because many stars form in binary pairs.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_star

While it is not impossible that some binaries might be created through gravitational capture between two single stars, given the very low likelihood of such an event (three objects being actually required, as conservation of energy rules out a single gravitating body capturing another) and the high number of binaries currently in existence, this cannot be the primary formation process. The observation of binaries consisting of stars not yet on the main sequence supports the theory that binaries develop during star formation. Fragmentation of the molecular cloud during the formation of protostars is an acceptable explanation for the formation of a binary or multiple star system.

The outcome of the three-body problem, in which the three stars are of comparable mass, is that eventually one of the three stars will be ejected from the system and, assuming no significant further perturbations, the remaining two will form a stable binary system.