The heaviest elements naturally occurring on earth and in the solar system owe their origins to an extreme nucleosynthesis process: the rapid neutron capture process (r-process). While one r-process astrophysical site has been observationally confirmed, the emergence of r-process species over galactic time likely requires multiple sites of production and is not fully understood. Observables of r-process nucleosynthesis such as abundance patterns and light curves are used to trace its origins, and these are shaped by both the nuclear physics and astrophysics of candidate sites. Thanks to the current generation of radioactive ion facilities, the ground state properties and even the reaction rates of the very neutron-rich, unstable species that participate in the r-process are within reach. Here we describe work to exploit these capabilities to extract characteristics of astrophysical sites from r-process observables. We further speculate on what, once the r-process site or sites have been definitively identified and characterized, we might learn about nuclear physics from these observables.

This lecture was made possible by the William C. Ferguson Fund.