Experiments that are both difficult and expensive on earth may be happening quite easily -- and free of charge -- during neutron-star mergers or supernovae even

Experiments that are both difficult and expensive on earth may be happening quite easily -- and free of charge -- during neutron-star mergers or supernovae events quite far away. We can't see them happening, but astronomers can detect oddly high abundances of likely fission products from the decay of such super-heavy elements. More details appeared in this Science magazine report (December 2023) from about a dozen North American researchers. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf1341#con1 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf1341#con1 They found elevated amounts of elements such as silver (47) and platinum (78), which they believe are likely to be fission products emerging from ultra-heavy elements created by rapid neutron capture that occurs when stars go wild. (My language, not theirs.) They posit that the elements involved have atomic masses of 260 or higher. At the low end, that's right around Bohrium (107), and the high end could go a lot higher.