New insight into the behaviour of atomic nuclei may explain how gigantic star explosions, or supernovas, have formed the elements that are crucial to humankind. Ground-breaking research in nuclear ...

Elements heavier than iron, such as gold and uranium, are primarily formed through neutron capture processes, specifically the rapid neutron capture process (r-process). The r-process, unlike the ...

The universe was too hot for atoms to form immediately after the Big Bang. Hydrogen formed about 3 minutes after the Big Bang. Helium formed in smaller amounts than hydrogen. Neutral atoms formed ...

An international team of scientists using one of the pair of 10-meter telescopes at the W.M. Keck Observatory on the summit of Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii has shown that the early moments of our ...

Astrophysicists are one step closer to understanding how the heaviest chemical elements are created in the universe, thanks to a camera designed and built at the University of Sheffield. Scientists ...

Inscribed on an Italian family’s 15th century coat of arms and decorating an ancient Japanese shrine, the Borromean rings are symbolically potent. Remove one ring from the trio of linked circles and ...

A new study has revealed that our understanding of the South Pole-Aitken basin was quite literally back-to-front, meaning ...

Most of the carbon and nitrogen in our bodies probably came from a planet the size of Mars crashing into Earth 4.4 billion years ago, scientists say. Researchers have long thought that these elements, ...

Around 3.5 billion years ago, life began to sprout on a fairly quiet, desolate planet we call Earth. Tracing the origins of life, and how molecules combined to create microbial life, is perhaps the ...

Even if early Earth had water and oxygen, the planet would still have needed another ingredient for life to flourish: heavy metals. Our cellphones, Earth’s core and even human metabolism would ...