Their measurement of the reaction rate, published on November 11 in Nature, nails down the most uncertain factor in a sequence of steps known as Big Bang nucleosynthesis that forged the universe’s first atomic nuclei. Researchers are “over the moon” about the result, according to Ryan Cooke, an astrophysicist at Durham University in the United Kingdom who wasn’t involved in the work. “There’ll be a lot of people who are interested from particle physics, nuclear physics, cosmology, and astronomy,” he said. Physicists Pin Down the Nuclear Reaction Just After the Big Bang | WIRED
