{"id":244204,"date":"2026-09-18T05:07:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T10:07:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/new-krypton-88-data-narrow-a-key-gap-in-stellar-strontium-models"},"modified":"2026-09-18T05:07:27","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T10:07:27","slug":"new-krypton-88-data-narrow-a-key-gap-in-stellar-strontium-models","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/new-krypton-88-data-narrow-a-key-gap-in-stellar-strontium-models","title":{"rendered":"New krypton-88 data narrow a key gap in stellar strontium models"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/new-krypton-88-data-narrow-a-key-gap-in-stellar-strontium-models.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>An international research team has reported the first experimental investigation of a nuclear physics reaction essential for understanding how the element strontium is produced in stars\u2014specifically in stellar environments where traditional explanations for its formation fall short. The <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s42005-026-02713-5\" target=\"_blank\">study<\/a>, published June 8 in <i>Communications Physics<\/i>, reports that the team used indirect experimental techniques to extract previously inaccessible information about how an isotope of a separate element\u2014krypton\u2014absorbs, or captures, neutrons.<\/p>\n<p>Their measurements reduced the uncertainty of the neutron-capture rate of this isotope, krypton-88, from at least a factor of eight to about a factor of three. The team showed that the true rate of neutron capture by krypton-88 is consistently lower than theoretical predictions. When they incorporated these observations into leading models of how stars forge heavy elements\u2014the intermediate neutron-capture process (i-process)\u2014they discovered that the new rate increased the predicted amount of strontium, bringing simulations into better agreement with astronomical observations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An international research team has reported the first experimental investigation of a nuclear physics reaction essential for understanding how the element strontium is produced in stars\u2014specifically in stellar environments where traditional explanations for its formation fall short. The study, published June 8 in Communications Physics, reports that the team used indirect experimental techniques to extract [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244204\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}