By Peter Weiss
From Tampa, at a meeting of the American Physical Society
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2005/05/4994.jpg?resize=100%2C150&ssl=1)
Cosmic atom factories crank out gold and other heavy elements faster than scientists had suspected. So say physicists who have made the first measurement ever of the half-life of the isotope nickel-78.
Scientists consider stellar explosions, called supernovas, the blast furnaces in which about half of all heavy elements found in nature today were, and continue to be, forged. In a supernova, light nuclei pack on extra neutrons and then become heavier elements when some of the neutrons decay into protons. Every additional proton moves the evolving nucleus up one place in the Periodic Table of the Elements. However, many aspects of the process, called rapid neutron capture, remain poorly understood.