As part of the Tel Aviv 360 podcast series, Prof. Dan Maoz will be a guest, describing the connection between gravitational waves and the creation of heavy iron elements. (Hebrew only)
As part of the Tel Aviv 360 series, you are invited to a lecture by Prof. Dan Maoz, a senior faculty member in the School of Physics and Astronomy in the Faculty of Exact Sciences at Tel Aviv University, as part of the university's Faculty Club lecture series on the history of the formation of chemical elements in cosmic explosions.
Prof. Maoz presents the periodic table and the elements that exist in nature and raises the question that concerns many researchers - when and how were they created? He gives an overview of the elements that were created and are being created, starting from the Big Bang, through the formation of the first stars, and ending with the end of the stars' lives.
Elements up to Fe (iron) are formed from stellar explosions at the end of their lives, from the end of the lives of stars smaller than the Sun through neutron stars to black holes, but until recently it was still not clear where and how the elements heavier than the element iron found in the universe were formed. It is currently estimated that one of the sources of heavy elements may be the merger of two neutron stars. In 2017, gravitational waves were discovered that resulted from the merger of two neutron stars, an event that occurred 130 million years ago. At the same time, the emission of a beam of light known as a kilonova was also observed. This beam of light arises from the material released during the merger of the neutron stars, and researchers believe that this material includes an abundance of heavy elements, including precious metals such as gold and platinum, as well as rare metals, such as neodymium.
To listen:
