magnetorotational hypernova

 The currently accepted theory is that the heavy metals in the universe have been created by the merging of two neutron stars in a binary system.  A neutron star is small but incredibly dense, with a radius of about 10 km and a mass of about 1.4 times that of our sun. Two of these, caught in a gravitational system that pulls them into orbit around each other and finally into a explosive meeting, is an event capable of producing heavy metals in the resulting mashup.

 But two astronomers at ANU, David Young and Gary de Costa, have discovered that there are heavy metals in the universe which must have predated the existence of neutron stars.  They found such metals in an ancient star on the edge of the Milky Way.  Their theory is that these metals resulted  from the death spin of an immense star with a strong magnetic field, 25 times the mass of our sun, leading to its ultimate collapse and explosion – a magnetorotational hypernova.