Astronomers have discovered a rare star system that could one day produce an explosion so powerful it would flood space with gold.
This system is so rare (one in 10 billion) that only 10 of its kind are believed to exist in our entire galaxy.
The unusual star cluster – CPD-29 2176 – is located 11,400 light-years from Earth.
It was first identified by NASA’s Neil Gehrles Swift Observatory, which was launched in 2004.
Experts in the United States say that the star system has all the right conditions to trigger a rare “kilonova” event caused by the merger of two neutron stars.
These explosions produce a bright flash of radioactive light that releases large amounts of the main elements: silver, gold, platinum and uranium.
A “kilonova” event is known as a cosmic phenomenon resulting from the collision of two neutron stars that reverberate outside the galaxy and cause tremendous brightness.
Follow-up observations using the SMARTS telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inte-American Observatory in Chile allowed astronomers to confirm that the system would one day produce a kilonova.
Massive explosions of neutron stars collide with each other in the universe, sending intense bursts of high-energy particles into space.
These eruptions produce a bright flash of radioactive light that emits large amounts of important elements such as silver, gold, platinum and uranium.
The researchers hope that their discovery will help unlock the mystery of how “kilonova” formed, shedding light on the origin of heavy elements in the universe.
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