Study: Magnetars Rewrite the Story of How Gold and Heavy Metals Came to Be

For centuries, gold has symbolized wealth, beauty and permanence. But its origins lie not just in the Earth's crust or the ingenuity of ancient metalworkers — they go back more than 10 billion years, to some of the most violent and mysterious events in the universe.

New findings from a team of astrophysicists, based on decades-old NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) data, suggest that some of the gold, platinum and other heavy metals in the universe may have been forged not only in neutron star collisions — as previously believed — but in rare, violent eruptions called starquakes on magnetars, a highly magnetic type of neutron star.

This groundbreaking research, led by Columbia University doctoral student Anirudh Patel and published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, changes our understanding of how some of the universe’s most valuable materials came to be. And it means that the ring on your finger or the chain around your neck might trace its roots back to a cataclysmic flare from the crushed core of a dying star.

After the Big Bang, the universe consisted primarily of hydrogen, helium and trace amounts of lithium. Heavier elements, such as iron, formed in the hearts of massive stars. But the creation of elements heavier than iron, such as gold or platinum, require extreme environments — the kind where atoms are bombarded with neutrons in rapid succession, a process called rapid neutron capture or r-process nucleosynthesis.

Until recently, astrophysicists believed that this process primarily occurred during kilonovas, the dramatic collisions of neutron stars. Such events were observed in 2017, providing definitive proof that gold and other heavy elements could be produced this way. However, these events are rare and occur relatively late in cosmic history — too late to explain how ancient stars, and by extension early planets, already contained heavy metals billions of years ago.

Enter the magnetar.

A magnetar is a type of neutron star with a magnetic field a thousand trillion times stronger than Earth’s. These stellar remnants are so dense that a teaspoon of their matter would weigh as much as a billion tons. On rare occasions, magnetars experience “starquakes,” when their crust fractures under magnetic stress. These eruptions — called magnetar giant flares — unleash enormous amounts of energy and, as this new study suggests, may eject neutron-rich material into space, where it cools and forms heavy elements.

Remarkably, Patel’s team found gamma-ray signals in archival satellite data from a 2004 magnetar flare that matched predictions for this heavy element formation process. Their work indicates that magnetar flares could contribute up to 10% of the galaxy’s supply of elements heavier than iron — including gold, platinum and uranium.

This discovery not only fills in gaps in our understanding of cosmic chemistry but adds depth to the story behind every gold or platinum object we wear. The necklace you treasure, or the heirloom ring passed down through generations, may contain material that was born in an event more explosive and ancient than our own Sun.

Looking forward, scientists hope NASA’s upcoming Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI), set to launch in 2027, will confirm these results by detecting the elemental signatures from future magnetar flares. With this new window into stellar alchemy, researchers are one step closer to fully mapping the cosmic origin of the elements — and unlocking more secrets hidden in the precious materials we cherish.

So the next time you admire a gold bracelet or platinum ring, consider this: You’re wearing a relic from one of the universe’s most powerful explosions, a piece of stardust forged in a cosmic quake over 10 billion years ago.

Credit: Upper illustration courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech. Lower illustration courtesy of ESA.