Physicists Start To Pin Down How Stars Forge Heavy Atoms | Quanta Magazine
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The precursors of heavy elements might arise in the plasma underbellies of swollen stars or in smoldering stellar corpses. They definitely exist in East Lansing, Michigan.

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) may not glitter quite like the night sky, plunked as it is between Michigan State University’s chemistry department and the performing arts center. Inside, though, the lab is teeming with substances that are otherwise found only in stars. Here, atomic nuclei accelerate to half the speed of light, smash into a target and shatter into smithereens.

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