Using data gathered in August 2017 during a neutron star merger that occurred
between 85 million and 160 million light - years away (an event in which the colliding stars together weighed about three times the mass of our sun), current astrophysical models suggest that that single event generated
between one and five Earth masses of
europium and
between three and 13 Earth masses of gold, the researchers report this month in The Astrophysical Journal.