Refueling the Magic Furnace: Kilonova 2017 Rewrites the Story of Element Origins Barry Wood University of Houston Abstract For more than half a century, we have understood element creation in the stars—described in Marcus Chown’s colorful image as “the magic furnace.” From 1958 until 2017, supernova explosions were thought to be the primary site of element creation above Iron, No. 26 on the Periodic Table. This assumption was radically overturned with the August 17, 2017, arrival of signals from a catastrophic collision of neutron stars. This paper traces the history of element-creation science leading to the striking discoveries attending “Kilonova 2017” that now call for a rewriting of the nucleosynthesis chapter of Big History. Correspondence | Barry Wood,
[email protected] Citation | Wood, B. (2018) Refueling the Magic Furnace: Kilonova 2017 Rewrites the Story of Element Origins. Journal of Big History, II(3); 1 - 15. DOI | http://dx.doi.org/10.22339/jbh.v2i3.2300 Introduction Beginning at 24 Hertz, it gradually rose over 100 Pangea had recently broken up . North America and seconds to several hundred Hertz—indicating the Europe were slowly drifting apart inspiraling of two massive bodies about to detonate . the Himalayas had not yet appeared . tropical in a cataclysmic collision. Following 3,000 cycles, the jungles harbored enormous predatory dinosaurs that GW signal came to an abrupt end at 12:41:04.4 UTC would roam the earth for another 65 million years . (Coordinated Universal Time). Almost immediately mammals the size of housecats kept to the shadows . (1.74 seconds later) a two-second gamma-ray burst .