Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have traced an incredibly bright gamma-ray burst (GRB) back to its source, a violent collision between two neutron stars.
The ring on your finger likely contains atoms forged in neutron star collisions like this, also known as "kilonovas." That's because, as well as blasting out long-duration GRBs, kilonovas are believed to be the sites at which the universe’s heaviest elements, which cannot be synthesized in the nuclear furnaces at the heart of stars, are forged.
