Artist's impression of a hot and dense accretion disk around a black hole, which can be a rich production site of heavy elements. (IMAGE)

GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH

Artist's impression of a hot and dense accretion disk around a black hole, which can be a rich production site of heavy elements.

Caption

Neutron-rich material is ejected from the disk, enabling the rapid neutron-capture process (r-process). The light blue region is a particularly fast ejection of matter, called a jet, which typically originates parallel to the disk's rotation axis.

Credit

Picture: National Radio Astronomy Observatory, USA

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License

CC BY-SA

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