57 elements; research meetings

Today the astro seminar was given by Or Graur (CfA). He spoke about various discoveries he and collaborators have made in type Ia supernovae. For me, the most exciting was the discovery of atomic-mass-57 elements, which he can find by looking at the late-time decay: The same way we identify the mass-56 elements from timing supernovae decays at intermediate times, he finds the mass-57 elements. The difference is that they are at much later times (decay times in the years). He pointed out a caveat, which is that the late-time light curve can also be affected by unresolved light echoes. That's interesting and got me thinking (once again) about all the science related to light echoes that might be under the radar right now.

I hosted today my first-ever undergraduate research meeting. I got together undergraduates and pre-PhD students who are interested in doing research, and we discussed the Kepler and APOGEE data. My plan (and remember, I like to fail fast) is to have them work together on overlapping projects, so they all have coding partners but also their own projects. With regular meetings, it can fit into schedules and become something like a class!