Dr. Leung finds Cosmic Gold 

Dr. Shing Chi Leung, SUNY Poly assistant professor of physics, in collaboration with Mr. Chun-Ming Yip, Dr. Ming-Chung Chu and Dr. Lap-Ming Lin, from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, published a peer reviewed article in The Astrophysical Journal. They discovered that the explosion of a low-mass neutron star can be the alternative cosmic source for the Lanthanides and other heavy elements, including precious metals, such as gold and platinum.  
 
Neutron stars are the evolutionary end points of stars with a mass between 10 – 25 times that of the Sun. After the final explosion, the star leaves behind a compact object with a mass comparable to the Sun, and a diameter of about 20 km (size of Manhattan). Such a compact object is stable to exist alone. But in a binary neutron star system, the interaction with the companion neutron star can trigger something dramatic.    
 
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