As Carl Sagan once said, "We are made of star stuff." However, each element has its own astronomical origins story. Elements are created everywhere from the centers of stars, to supernovae explosions, to the Big Bang itself. Dr. Drout will take us on a journey through the periodic table, highlighting how our recent discovery of a 'kilonova' associated with the cataclysmic merger of two neutron stars has filled in one of the final pieces of the elemental puzzle—the origin of many of the heaviest elements in the universe.
Maria Drout: Hubble, Carnegie-Dunlap Fellow, Carnegie Observatories
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