God LOVES a good supernova and always applauds an especially violent one and duly ranks it on a scale of C to S and records the salient details in his "Best Supernovae Of All Time" book. (Supernovae from F to D aren't worthy of his interest.)

It's hard to beat the pair production supernovae of the first generation though, especially for RAW PRIMAL POWER, however, when it comes to ELEMENTAL SYNTHESIS a big Type II definitely has the edge.

After observing a particularly BOUNTIFUL harvest of high mass nuclei from one such explosion he starts to ponder the wonder of the Rapid Neutron-Capture Process.

Why go to all the trouble of fusing elements shell by shell over millions of years for relatively little gain when you can just THROW a bunch of neutrons together and let them form MOST of the quasi-stable heavy isotopes on their own?

So COOL!

But free neutrons are so hard to come by... especially at the flux required for the r-process...

If only there were a source of neutrons just ready to go! Imagine if there were ENTIRE STARS made of the stuff!

HEY WAIT!

The Great Inventor remembers the Neutron Star left as the remnant from the previous supernova and he ponders how he can liberate all those r-process candidates from their gravitational prison...

The lightbulb ignites in his brain: OF COURSE! Binary Neutron Star Merger!