Too much heavy metal stops stars producing more

The Centre of excellence for All Sky Astrophysics is located at the Arc.

There are many stars in the center of the Milky Way with heavy metal content. Credit: Michael Franklin.

Stars are giant factories that produce most of the elements in the universe. How do stars change over time?

Two new papers published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society shed light on how the youngest generation of stars will eventually stop contributing metals to the universe.

The authors are members of ASTRO 3D, the centre of excellence for All Sky Astrophysics. The Space Telescope Science Institute is located at the Australian National University.

The first two elements of the periodic table were created in the Bigbang, says the first author of a paper.

The stars that came after the Big bang produce heavier elements over time.

Our sun and the other "metal-rich" stars are enriching the composition of the galaxy over time by releasing their products into space.

All elements heavier than iron are created by stars like our sun and affect us directly.

Most of the lead on Earth was made in low-mass stars that produce elements such as strontium and barium.

Depending on the composition of a star at its birth, this ability to produce more metals changes. Giulia says introducing a tiny bit more metal into the stars' gas has big implications. Her paper uses modeling to study the chemical output of metal-rich stars.

"We discovered that stars will stop sending more metals into the universe over time at a certain threshold of initial metal content in the gas."

The sun was born 4.5 billion years ago. It has a heavy element content similar to other stars in the center of the Milky Way and is "metal-rich" compared to the first stellar generations.

The evolution of younger stars are up to seven times more metal-rich than the sun.

"My simulations show that the stars are acting weird because of the high level of chemical enrichment," says Cinquegrana.

By the time they are white dwarfs, they are not expelling any heavy elements, despite the fact that they are super metal-rich stars. She says that the metals are locked up in the white dwarf remnant.

The make-up of the universe is always changing because stars constantly add elements to the universe. The distribution of elements will look different in the far distant future, according to Karakas.

The papers are published in the Royal Astronomical Society's Monthly Notices. They were published on arXiv.

The most metal-rich asymptotic giant branch stars, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, was published in 2011. There's a book called "10093/mnras/stab3205".

The most metal-rich stars in the universe: chemical contributions of low- and intermediate-mass giant branch stars with metallicities within 0.04 Z 0.10. There is a book titled "10093/mnras/stab3379".

There are monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The Centre of excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3D is provided by the Arc.

Too much heavy metal stops stars from producing more.

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