Scientists Reveal How Gold Is Created in Space

Nuclear physicists at the University of Tennessee have made three discoveries that bring scientists closer to understanding how gold is created during violent events in space. The findings shed light on a process that produces heavy elements such as gold and platinum when stars collapse, explode or collide.

These stellar events trigger a chain reaction known as the rapid neutron capture process, or r-process. During this process, atomic nuclei absorb neutrons one after another. As each nucleus grows heavier, it becomes unstable and eventually splits apart into lighter forms. One key step in that chain involves a sequence where beta decay precedes the emission of two neutrons, which has been difficult to study until now.

The team worked alongside researchers from other institutions at the ISOLDE Decay Station at CERN. They focused on indium-134, a rare and short-lived isotope that is difficult to produce in large amounts.

When indium-134 decays, it generates excited versions of three tin isotopes: tin-132, tin-133 and tin-134. Professor Robert Grzywacz said producing these nuclei in sufficient quantities requires advanced technology.

How gold gets created in space through stellar collisions

A neutron detector constructed at the university, with funding from the National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation program, allowed the team to record the energies of neutrons released during beta-delayed two-neutron emission.

Scientists just uncovered new nuclear secrets that help explain how extreme cosmic events create gold. pic.twitter.com/7MsISftidp

— Tom Marvolo Riddle (@tom_riddle2025) March 27, 2026

Grzywacz said this was the most significant result because this type of emission occurs only in short-lived exotic nuclei, and no previous experiment had measured those energies. He added that it opens an entirely new area of research.

The second discovery confirmed a neutron state in tin-133 that theorists had anticipated for years but never detected in an experiment. Grzywacz explained that tin-133 does not fully lose the imprint of its origin after beta decay.

A trace of its earlier state remains, which he described as the nucleus retaining a kind of memory. He noted that researchers had been searching for this state for two decades before the two-neutron data finally revealed it.

Finding challenges models for exotic nuclear behavior

The third finding showed that this newly identified state was populated in a way that did not match standard statistical expectations.

Grzywacz said the result was more striking because the decay conditions were relatively clean and well separated, which makes the deviation from expected behavior harder to explain.

He said scientists will likely need to develop entirely new theoretical models to describe exotic nuclei far from stability.

Graduate student Peter Dyszel led the data analysis and co-authored the study, published in Physical Review Letters. He also built detector frames, assembled equipment, developed software, and tested electronic systems throughout the experiment.