These mergers involve the mashup of the remnants of two massive stars in a binary system.
Back then, not enough time had passed for neutron star mergers to have even occurred.
Thus, another source was needed to explain the presence of early heavy elements in the Milky Way.
Only 1% of stars in the galaxy are found in the halo.
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This process produces heavy elements.
Binary star systems have two stars orbiting around a common centre of mass.
This process can produce heavy elements.
From these observations, we studied the stars chemical composition.
Our analysis revealed an iron content roughly 3,000 times lower than the Suns.
In other words, SMSS J2003-1142 is chemically primitive.
Particularly important are its unusually high amounts of nitrogen, zinc, and heavy elements including europium and uranium.
Also, large amounts of uranium would have required the presence of lots of neutrons.
What about neutron star mergers?
There are a few reasons for this.
In our hypothesis, a single parent star would have made all the elements observed in SMSS J2003-1142.
But this time wouldnt have even existed this early in the galaxys formation when these elements were made.
This scenario, while possible, is more complicated and therefore less likely.
