Astronomers Discover Rare Dwarf Galaxy Loaded With Gold, Platinum and Silver

Researchers have been trying to find out the origin of some of the most precious metals found on our planet, like gold, platinum and silver, for more than 60 years. A recent discovery may reportedly have the solution to the mystery. Scientists have discovered an ancient dwarf galaxy located approximately 98,000 light years from our planet, which has stars that contain a massive amount of precious metals.

R-process elements like gold, platinum or silver are valuable and heavy, and their creation needs an enormous amount of energy. Until now, no one has actually been able to pinpoint how the precious metals came to exist in the Universe.  "Understanding how heavy, r-process elements are formed is one of hardest problems in nuclear physics," said Anna Frebel from MIT. "The production of these really heavy elements takes so much energy that it's nearly impossible to make them experimentally. The process for making them just doesn't work on Earth. So we have had to use the stars and the objects in the cosmos as our lab." 

Neighboring dwarf galaxy Reticulum II, which orbits the Milky Way, was discovered last year. Scientists have found that the tiny galaxy is one of the best places for not only detecting dark matter, but also determining out how precious elements originated in the Universe. Frebel and her team of researchers from MIT, detected that the galaxy contained huge amounts of r-process elements by studying the starlight from numerous of its brightest stars. The analysis was conducted by using the Magellan telescopes at the Chile's Las Campanas Observatory. Furthermore, the scientists also concluded that the stars couldn't have produced the elements on their own.

According to previous studies, scientists believe that r-process elements were created by neutral star explosions in dwarf galaxies and were transported to our planet by getting embedded into stars and asteroids. In addition, as per researchers, the gold sank into the planet's center because of Earth's initial molten state. Furthermore, most of the gold atoms probably came from the same collisions because star mergers were exceedingly rare in the early Universe. Now, by analyzing the early stages of dwarf galaxies like Reticulum II which are loaded with r-process elements, where neutron star collisions are common, scientists can know more about the mystery of precious elements and their formation.