An international team, led by a pre-doctoral researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has revealed that the heaviest chemical elements on the surfaces of the youngest massive stars originate from their more evolved companions. The study has been published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics . ‘Throughout their lives, stars produce energy by fusing lighter chemical elements into heavier ones.’ “Stars are the universe’s great factories for chemical elements: as they evolve, they take the lighter ones and fuse them into heavier ones, changing their original
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