How do you make gold? Simply bombard a nucleus with countless neutrons before it can decay.

Special Thanks to Prof. Rob Jeffries from the Keele Astrophysics Group for his expertise in this area.

Further reading:

r-process nucleosynthesis and kilonovae from hypermassive neutron star post-merger remnants - https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac3128

The Complete Explanation of the Nuclear Magic Numbers - https://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/...

JWST detection of heavy neutron capture elements in a compact object merger - https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2307.0...