Caliskan Team Finds Sun Holds 55% More Silver, Solving Long-Running Deficit
Updated
Updated · Space.com · Jul 23
Caliskan Team Finds Sun Holds 55% More Silver, Solving Long-Running Deficit
3 articles · Updated · Space.com · Jul 23
Summary
New simulations led by Sema Caliskan indicate the sun contains 55% more silver than earlier measurements suggested, largely resolving a mismatch with silver-rich CI chondrite meteorites.
The team reached that result by modeling silver atoms with non-equilibrium effects—complex light-atom interactions that earlier, simpler spectral analyses had not captured.
Tetralith supercomputer runs in Sweden showed those effects can make a high-silver sun still produce the weak silver spectral lines astronomers had interpreted as a deficit.
The revised estimate does not perfectly match meteorites formed 4.6 billion years ago from the same primordial material, but it is close enough to rule out any extraordinary explanation.
Published in Astronomy & Astrophysics in July 2026, the method could now be applied to other stars to trace how silver formed and spread through the Milky Way.