Nucleosynthesis Movies

(You can download QuickTime player here if you need.)

r-process movie: The r-process is responsible for the origin of about half of the elements heavier than iron that are found in nature, including elements such as gold or uranium. Shown is the result of a model calculation for this process that might occur in a supernova explosion. Iron is bombarded with a huge flux of neutrons and a sequence of neutron captures and beta decays is then creating heavy elements.
Click to view the QuickTime movie below:
r-process movie ( Information )

rp-process movie: Neutron stars are extremely compact stars - they have about the mass of the sun, but only the size of a small city. A table spoon of neutron star matter weighs as much as 8000 aircraft carriers. If neutron stars are orbited by a normal companion star they can suck matter from the companion. This matter gets compressed and heated as it reaches the neutron star surface and if enough has accumulated it explodes in a gigantic hydrogen bomb. The explosion can be observed from earth as an X-ray burst with duration of 10-100s. The movie shows how hydrogen and helium are converted into heavy elements by nuclear reactions during the outburst. It is this conversion that generates the energy that we can observe. The ashes of the burning remains on the surface of the neutron star and can modify its properties.
Click to view the QuickTime movie below:
rp-process movie ( Information )

p-process movies: The p-process is responsible for the origin of the rare proton rich isotopes in nature, which are heavier than iron. The best scenarios for this process are supernova explosions of type II. In these environments very high temperature (more than 2 billions Kelvin) can be reached when the shock front goes through the Ne/O-layers.
Click to view the QuickTime movies below:
p-process movie 1 | p-process movie 2 ( Information )