Superheavy elements may live in odd stars

• Autores: Jesse Emspak
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3119, 2017, pág. 14
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Vladimir Dzuba at the University of New South Wales, Australia, and his colleagues think the oddball Przybylski's star could be harboring superheavy elements. A variable star some 370 light years away, it has unusually lithe iron or nickel. It is also the only star believed to contain short-lived elements called actinides, with atomic numbers ranging from 89 to 103. Dzuba argues that the actinides, whose signatures seem to be present in the stars spectrum, are a sign that the island of stability elements exist there. Their slow decay is what gives rise to the observed elements, he says: since actinides decay quickly relative to a star's lifetime, they ought to be gone unless there is some mechanism to replenish them.