All the Gold in the Universe Was (Likely) Created This Way

Trouble viewing? View in your browser. View all Scientific American publications.

    

January 05, 2023

Dear Reader, This week, we're listening to heavy metal. Our top story is an audiovisual explainer of how scientists recently learned the cosmic origins of essentially all the gold, platinum and other precious metals heavier than iron. For more context, dive in to an expert-authored feature article on the topic that appears in our January issue. As a chaser, read our news story about how converting telescopic data to sounds rather than images can boost astronomy's accessibility (and maybe lead to new discoveries, too). From there, check out the surprising news of active volcanism on Mars, a book review on the pitfalls of planetary terraforming, and our editorial reflections on the year that was. Enjoy, and we wish you a healthy and happy 2023.

Lee Billings, Senior Editor, Space & Physics

Astrophysics All the Gold in the Universe Was (Likely) Created This Way For a long time, no one knew how "heavy metals" formed—or showed up on Earth. Now some new evidence finally points the way to an answer. By Jason Drakeford,Clara Moskowitz,Jeffery DelViscio

Cosmology How Star Collisions Forge the Universe's Heaviest Elements Scientists have new evidence about how cosmic cataclysms forge gold, platinum and other heavy members of the periodic table By Sanjana Curtis

Astronomy Audio Astronomy Unlocks a Universe of Sound Turning astronomical data into sound rather than images can inspire blind and visually impaired people—and maybe lead to some discoveries, too By Timmy Broderick

Policy What's on the Horizon for 2023 Scientific American editors share what scientific events they are paying attention to as 2023 begins By The Editors

Public Health Editors' Picks: Our Favorite Opinions of 2022 Our opinion section took us to the front lines of COVID, revealed how racists misuse evolutionary biology, illuminated a mental health epidemic in kids, and more By Megha Satyanarayana

Planetary Science Volcanic Activity on Mars Upends Red Planet Assumptions A mass of moving material on Mars called a mantle plume may be causing marsquakes and volcanism By Phil Plait

Arts If Future Humans Terraformed a New Earth, Could They Get It Right? A novel that redefines personhood, greed and despair in biotech, arguing for a singular reality, and more books By Amy Brady

FROM THE STORE Scientific American Volume 327, Issue 6

QUOTE OF THE DAY "We are used to thinking that astronomy is a visual science, but that's actually just a habit that we have. We are basically all blind to the sky; we can see just a tiny fraction of what's up there. And the rest is just a representation that we give." Anita Zanella, an Italian astronomer and proponent of "sonification," the conversion of scientific data into sounds rather than images.

FROM THE ARCHIVE Where (Some of) Earth's Gold Came From Of all of that precious metal ever refined, 600 tons were created in a collision between two neutron stars 1,000 light-years away and 4.6 billion years ago By Imre Bartos,Szabolcs Márka | May 2019

LATEST ISSUES

Questions?   Comments?

Download the Scientific American App

To view this email as a web page, go here. You received this email because you opted-in to receive email from Scientific American. To ensure delivery please add news@email.scientificamerican.com to your address book. Unsubscribe     Manage Email Preferences     Privacy Policy     Contact Us