RASC Hamilton: Rust and Stardust

Have you ever looked up in the starry sky and felt small and insignificant compared to the vastness of the cosmos? What you will learn in this talk is that you are actually made of the exact same material as these sparky dots up there and essentially everything else in the universe. Stars produce the elements that compose everything you see – yourselves included – while they are born, live and die in the cosmic ocean. You are literally a living part of the universe, made out of stardust! You will also learn how we study the origin of the elements in a laboratory by recreating stellar reactions using particle accelerators.

Athanasios Thanassis-Psaltis, is a Graduate Student as well as a Research and Teaching Assistant at McMaster University and he is advised by Prof. Alan Chen.

His area of expertise is Experimental Nuclear Astrophysics, the scientific branch that studies the origin of the elements in the cosmos – or what you are literally made of! If you like to know more about what he does, you can visit his Research page.

In his spare time he tweets about science, technology, art and whatever he finds interesting. He also participates in several outreach activities and he is trying to keep track of his graduate studies adventures on his personal blog, which can be found here.

Who can attend: Everyone
Fee: Free
Reservations: Not required
Organized by: RASC - Hamilton Centre
Location: Royal Canadian Legion – Branch 551, 79 Hamilton St. N., Waterdown, ON L0R 2H0

http://www.hamiltonrasc.ca/december-meeting-rust-and-stardust/