Out there in space, our ‘rare’ metals and stones are plentiful. There are moons, asteroids made up of diamonds and platinum which, if somehow brought back to earth, could be valued at trillions of dollars. One of the recent observations by NASA scientists has revealed that an immense explosion caused by colliding neutron stars could be spewing out gold and platinum. The scientists spotted the huge collision after picking up a wobble in the space-time with help of gravitational wave detectors at LIGO.
The collision occurred 130 million light years away and the scientists think it could be a kilonova – a bright flash of radioactive elements which also throws out large amounts of silver, gold, platinum, and uranium. What is interesting is that the researchers have been stumbling upon such explosions often after gravitational wave detectors have started being used. Earlier, these were believed to be a very rare instance, but now they are expecting to see another one very soon.
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