The Sci-Files – 10/18/2020 – Tamas Budner – Radioactive Elements in Exploding Stars
October 19, 2020
About 30 – 60 classical novae occur in the Milky Way each year. These luminous events can appear in the night sky like “new stars” and are often observed by amateur astronomers. Classical nova explosions occur in stellar binaries involving a compact white dwarf and a hydrogen-rich donor star. On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Tamas Budner. Tamas is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Physics and Astronomy who conducts research at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. Tamas is an experimental nuclear astrophysicist studying radioactive isotopes to better understand the underlying thermonuclear reactions in these events and how they affect the properties of novae. If you’re interested in talking about your MSU research on the radio or nominating a student, please email Chelsie and Danny at [email protected] You can ask questions about future episodes here. Check The Sci-Files out on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube!
Chelsie is a Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. student at Michigan State University. She studies what happens to the extracellular matrix of cells after they have been stressed. She co-hosts "The Sci-Files" with Daniel Puentes. Together they explore the different topics that MSU students research on "The Sci-Files" at WDBM.
Daniel is a graduate student in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, where he does research at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. His research involves measuring the mass of radioactive nuclei, and how it can tell us how protons and neutrons are arranged inside of a nucleus. This research also helps scientists understand how the elements were created in different stellar environments! At WDBM, he and Chelsie Boodoo co-host The Sci-Files.
