  The origin of nucleosynthesis products of rapid neutron capture reactions
(the r-process) is a longstanding astrophysical problem. Recent analyses of
elemental abundances for extremely metal-poor stars shed light on the elemental
abundances of individual supernovae. Comparison of the abundance distributions
of some extremely metal-poor stars with those of the best-observed supernova SN
1987A clearly indicates that the overabundances of barium and strontium found
in SN 1987A that have been ascribed to the slow neutron capture process must be
results of r-process nucleosynthesis. The mass of freshly synthesized barium in
SN 1987A is estimated to be 6x10^-6 solar mass based on the observed surface
abundance and detailed hydrodynamical models for this supernova. These new
findings lead to the conclusion that 20 solar mass stars, one of which is the
progenitor star of SN 1987A, are the predominant production sites for r-process
elements in the Galaxy and the r-process element donors for notable
neutron-capture-rich giant stars, CS22892-052 and CS31082-001.
