2014 Tuckwell Alum, Guy Leckenby has research published in international journal, Nature

Guy joined the Tuckwell Scholarship Program in its very first year, graduated with a Bachelor of Philosophy (Honours)(Science) with First Class Honours in Physics and is currently finishing his PhD at TRIUMF – Canada’s particle accelerator centre in Vancouver. 

Guy is studying how the elements of the universe were created in dying stars and will continue research in Bordeaux, France next year.

To summarise the research, Guy and his team… “measured a rare nuclear decay in thallium-205 that only happens in stars, which helps us understand how lead-205 is produced by dying (AGB) stars shedding their atmosphere. That amount of lead-205 can then be used as a radioactive clock to time how long the Sun took to form from its parent gas cloud.” 

Read more here: Long-sought measurement of exotic beta decay in thallium helps extract the timescale of the birth of the Sun | TRIUMF : Canada's particle accelerator centre

Read the full research paper here: High-temperature 205Tl decay clarifies 205Pb dating in early Solar System | Nature

Congratulations Guy! This is amazing work in the fascinating field of astrophysics!