Neutron star collision may have created gold and platinum

By Dean Murray

Astronomers have spotted a jaw-dropping collision between two neutron stars – and it may have produced gold and platinum.

The discovery in a tiny, faraway galaxy is the first time this has been seen in such a setting and may explain the presence of these precious metals in intergalactic space.

Researchers said this event, called GRB 230906A, is likely in a stream of gas located about 4.7 billion light-years from Earth.

To find this event and identify its true nature, astronomers used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes.

NASA Chandra mission team said: "Neutron stars are the ultra-dense remnants left behind after massive stars collapse. When neutron stars occasionally collide with one another, they can produce important elements like gold and platinum and generate gravitational waves that ripple across space."

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This latest discovery may help solve open questions as to how those precious elements are sometimes found outside galaxies, as well as how some gamma-ray bursts mysteriously do not appear to be associated with a known galaxy.

A paper describing these results was published this week in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

“Finding a neutron star collision where we did is game changing,” said Simone Dichiara of Penn State University, who led the study. “It may be the key to unlocking not one, but two important questions in astrophysics.”

“We found a collision within a collision,” said co-author Eleonora Troja of the University of Rome in Italy. “The galaxy collision triggered a wave of star formation that, over hundreds of millions of years, led to the birth and eventual collision of these neutron stars.”

An alternative identity for the explosion is that it is in a much more distant galaxy located behind the galaxy group. The team considers this to be a less likely explanation than the tiny galaxy idea.