By studying isotopes scientists hope to gain insight into how elements within exploding stars came to be.

By studying these versions, known as isotopes, they hope to gain new insights into the reactions that created the elements within exploding stars, as well as testing theories about the “strong force” – one of the four fundamental forces in nature, which binds protons and neutrons together in an atom’s nucleus.

Because many isotopes are unstable and decay quickly – sometimes within fractions of a second – scientists have only studied a small proportion of those thought to exist.

Some of these “rare isotopes” may drive reactions crucial to the formation of elements, so by studying them physicists hope to gain a better understanding of the chemical history of the universe – including how we got here.

The vast majority of elements are thought to have been created within exploding stars, but “in many cases we don’t know which stars created which elements, because these reactions involve unstable isotopes – things we couldn’t readily get our hands on,” said Prof Gavin Lotay, a nuclear physicist at the University of Surrey, who plans to use the new facility to investigate common explosions called X-ray bursts within neutron stars.

Approximately a month later, FRIB researchers plan to measure the radioactive decay of isotopes thought to exist within neutron stars – some of the densest objects in the universe, formed when a massive star runs out of fuel and collapses – to better understand their behaviour